Philosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799

Kant

PHILOSOPHICAL

CORRESPONDENCE

1759-99

Edited

and translated

ARNULF

THE OF

ZWEIG

UNIVERSITY CHICAGO PRESS

by

The letters in this collection are translations o£ correspondence contained in the Prussian Academy edition of Kant's works, Kant's gesammelte Schriften (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter äc Co.), Vols. X - X I I ( 1 9 2 2 ) and XXIII ( 1 9 5 5 ) .

International Standard Boo^ Number: 0-226-4236 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66—23705

THE THE

UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY

©

0.-' C H 1 C A C 0 OF

CHICACO

PRESS. PRESS,

CHICAGO LTD.,

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LONDON

i go7 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published /907 Second Impression 1970 Printed in the United States of America Design by Vladimir Reichl

Translator's Preface

This volume contains translations of virtually all of Kant's philosophical correspondence, together with some of his personal and historically interesting letters. Also included are a few of the many letters written to Kant by his students, colleagues, disciples, and critics. Some of these letters are needed in order to understand Kant's own remarks, and others have considerable interest in their own right. In some cases, the letters have been abridged, with only the significant passages translated, and sometimes a portion of a letter has been merely summarized. Such summaries, as well as other explanatory remarks by the translator, are in brackets. The Prussian Academy of Sciences edition of Kant's works, Volumes X - X I I and XXIII, includes over seven hundred letters and fragments of letters, comprising about fifteen hundred pages; Volume XIII has seven hundred pages of explanatory notes and indexes. Although it was tempdng to include many more than will be found in this collection, the great majority of letters not included would be of interest only to the specialist, and he presumably would want to study them in the original language. 1 A complete citation for each letter to the second printing of the Prussian Academy edition will be found under the headings in the text. Most of the explanatory footnotes are derived from the Academy edition Volume XIII or from K. Vorlander's definitive biography of Kant, Immanuel Kant, der Mann und das Wer\ (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1924), though I have not attempted to reproduce in even a limited way the enormous scholarly achievement of those volumes. In one or two letters Kant himself wrote a footnote, and these are so designated. I have sometimes given a German or Latin expression in brackets following the translation. 1 Only one of the letters, to my knowledge, has ever been published in its entirety in English. It is Kant's letter of February 2 1 , 1772, to Marcus Herz, which appeared in the Philosophical forum (Boston University), XIII ( 1 9 5 5 ) , and was reprinted in L. W. Beck, Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965). My translation of this letter differs only insignificantly from that of the previous translator, Arne Unjhem.

Translator's Preface

•

v

T w o people above all deserve thanks for their help in this work. The first is Professor Lewis White Beck, whose writing and teaching first stimulated my interest in Kant and who gave me many valuable suggestions and much friendly advice on translating the correspondence. The other is my wife, who not only encouraged and aided me but who also made many critical suggestions for improving the manuscript. I would also like to express my thanks to the University of Oregon for granting me sabbatical leave during 1962-63, to the Research Committee of the Graduate School of the University of Oregon for two summer research grants, and to the American Philosophical Association for a grant in support of this volume. Because of these sources of assistance, I was able to spend the academic year 1962-63 in Germany and Austria. I would like particularly to express my pleasure at the hospitality extended to me and to my family by my colleagues in the Universities of Vienna and Bonn during that year. ARNULF

Eugene, Oregoi

vi •

Translator's Preface

ZWEIG

Contents Introduction

3

The

Letters

From

J. G.

HAMANN,

TROW

J.

LAMBERT,

To

H.

J. H.

From

MOSES

To

J . H.

November

From

MOSES

H.

October

HERZ,

To

MARCUS

HERZ

50 54

February

58

1770

December

MENDELSSOHN,

MARCUS

47

September 2, 1770

LAMBERT,

To

43

April 8, 1766

MENDELSSOHN, LAMBERT,

J.

13, 1765

February 3, 1766

LAMBERT,

From

35

1759

December 31, 1765

LAMBERT,

J. H.

To

July 27,

60 25, /770

67

21, 1772

70

[toward the end of 1773]

76

To J. C.

LAVATER,

April 28, 1775

79

To J. C.

LAVATER

[after April 28, 1775]

82

March 28, 1776

83 86

To

C.

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

November

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

August 20, 1777

87

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

August 28, 1778

89

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

October 20, 1778

90

From

H.

WOLKE,

MARCUS

November

HERZ,

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

February

To

MARCUS

HERZ,

May

To

MARCUS

HERZ

To

J.

To

CHRISTIAN

To

MOSES

To

JOHANN

From To

BERNOULLI,

24, 1778

92

4, 177g

93

1 , 1781

93

[about May 11, 1781}

95

November

16, 1781

96

August 7, 1783

98

GARVE,

MENDELSSOHN, SCHULTZ,

JOHANN

JOHANN

24, 1776

SCHULTZ,

SCHULTZ,

August 16, 1783

105

August 26, 1783

108

August 28, 1783 February

109

17, 1784

in Contents

•

vii

From

F . V . L . PLESSING,

From

F . V . L . PLESSING,

To

J . BERING,

To

MARCUS H E R Z ,

To

L . H . JAKOB,

September

11

JOHANN S C H U L T Z ,

To

HEINRICH JUNG-STILLING

B . JACHMANN,

April 12, ig,

To

M A R C U S H E R Z , May

To

J. G . C . C . KIESEWETTER,

To

A. W.

To

C . F . HELLWAG,

J,

April

ig,

From

SALOMON M A I M O N , L . REINHOLD,

11,

February

To

M A R I A VON H E R B E R T ,

Contents

2,

20, 17g/

17g1

779/

172

174 175 177 179 180 182

7792

185

1792

Spring,

17g1

17g1

7792

January 26,

J. G . FICHTE,

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171

June 14,

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January 20,

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162

169

[August]

November

/790

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57

159 161

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To

/790

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September

September

J. S. BECK,

J

April 20,

C . C . KIESEWETTER,

M A R I A VON H E R B E R T ,

viii •

130

[before September

F . GENSICHEN,

H . KANT,

143

April 20,

January

From

To J.

136

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J. S. BECK,

134

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133

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L . E . BOROWSKI

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178g

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127 128

178g

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126

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75, 178g

K . L . R E I N H O L D , May

J. S. BECK,

1787 25,

April

K . L . R E I N H O L D , May

To

124

[after March 1,

To

To

1787

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November

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From J. G.

123

5,

December

To

To J.

120

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To

From J. G.

27, 1786

April 7, 1786

J . C . BERENS,

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119

122

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From J.

115

1785

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3, 1784

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MARCUS H E R Z ,

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April

September

C . G . SCHUTZ,

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March 75, 1784

186

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188

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From J. From

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MARIA

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To

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To

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209 211

216 [after October 12, 1794]

217 220

March 30, 7795

221 222

October 2, 1796

224

May 29, 7797

226

June 20, 1797

227

June 24, 1797

231

July 10, 1797

TIEFTRUNK, HERZ,

234

October 73, 7797

TIEFTRUNK,

MARCUS

207

April 1, 1796

REUSS,

TIEFTRUNK,

H.

J.

206

December 17, 1794

LINDBLOM,

To

June 75, 1793

213

SCHÜTZ,

J. H.

205

June 77, 7794

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204

212

SCHLETTWEIN,

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7793

March 28, 1794

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April 10, 1794,

BIESTER,

FRIEDRICH

J. A.

KIESEWETTER,

WILHELM

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February

July 1, 1794

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200

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[January]

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To J.

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J. G.

30, 1792

December 21, 7792

ERHARD,

ELISABETH

195

December 4, 7792

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To

194

10, 1792

November

MAIMON,

J. S.

F.

November

BECK,

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192

October 16 [or 77], 7792

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190

July 3, 7792

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May 37, 17

S. BECK,

236

October 73, 7797 November December

11,

238

5, 7797

240

7797

245

December 25, 7797

248 Contents

•

ix

To

J . H . TIEPTRUNK.,

April

To

CHRISTIAN

September 21, ijg8

To J. G.

C.

GARVE, C.

KIESEWETTER,

5,

1798 October 19, ijg8

Open letter on Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, August Index

x

• Contents

250 252 7, 7799

253

255

Introduction

Introduction

Although most of Kant's letters were written reluctantly, sometimes hastily, and never with a view to publication, 1 they provide a great deal of information abouc his life and attitudes, the development of his philosophical ideas, and the impact of his thought and character on his contemporaries. We do not find the wit and liveliness that Kant the conversationalist was reputed to have or, with one or two exceptions, the warmth and passion that Kant's correspondents reveal in their own letters to him. Direct, humorless, unadorned by any flights of literary imagination, Kant's letters invariably reflect some specific business or obligation and seldom if ever manifest any sense of enjoyment or delight on the part of their author, who obviously regarded letter-writing as a chore and a distraction from more serious work. Nevertheless, there are great rewards for the reader. The firsthand reports of the evoiution in Kant's thinking, the replies to criticisms and questions from his disciples and foes—and sometimes the very failure to reply to such inquiries—are invaluable aids to our understanding of Kant's philosophy. Metaphysics, theology, mathematics, education, political theory, astronomy, applied ethics—almost all of Kant's intellectual interests are discussed and surveyed, and at the same time a picture of Kant's personality and character, his mental and physical anxieties, and an understanding of Kant's place in the history of the late eighteenth century are made available to us. Although many of the letters require little more explanation than is provided in the footnotes, it may be useful to review the topics discussed, identify some of the issues and personalities involved, and mention a few of the letters not included in this collection. 1 Kant expressed himself on this point when he declined to include his letters in the published correspondence of Lambert and again in that ot Mendelssohn. See, for example, his remarks to J. Bernoulli, November 16, 1 7 8 1 [ 1 7 2 ] , and to Marcus Herz, April 7, 1786 [267].

Introduction

•

3

•-

I. 1759-7°

Kant's career up to 1770, the year of his promotion to the professorship of logic and metaphysics in the University of Königsberg, is not very well represented in the correspondence. Of the fifty odd letters and fragments in the Prussian Academy of Sciences edition, only the correspondence with Lambert, Hamann, and Mendelssohn is of genuine importance.2 Lambert. J. H . Lambert (1728-77) was a mathematician, physicist, and philosopher whose renown, at the time of his correspondence, exceeded that of Kant. A member of the Berlin Academy, Lambert, in his Cosmological Letters ( 1 7 8 1 ) , supported an astronomical theory somewhat similar to that of Kant's General Natural History of the Heavens (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels [ 1755])- 3 Lambert's New Organon, his philosophy of science, appeared in 1764. In his first letter to Kant, November 13, 1765 [33], he takes note of their common interests and the similarity of their ideas in philosophy and in science-. Lambert here makes mention of the need for "an analysis of the 2 A letter to J. G. Lindner in 1759 has some biographical interest; it reveah how depressed Kant was wich his teaching position and perhaps with life in general: "I sit daily at the anvil of my lecrurn and guide the heavy hammer of my repetitious lectures, always beating out the same rhythm. Now and then a nobler sort of inclination stirs in me somewhere, a desire to expand beyond these narrow spheres; but in truth the threat of that feeling always drives me back to hard work without delay. . . . In this town where I find myseif and with the modest prosperity for which I allow myself to hope, I make do finally with the applause I receive and the benefits I derive from that, dreaming my life away." What the "nobler inclination" might have been, or what it was that broke Kant out of his despondent mood, we do not know. There are other miscellaneous letters of 1759—70 that may deserve mention. A tantalizing note from a certain Frau Maria Charlotte Jacobi in 1762 hints very faindy at romance; she and her girl friend send Kant a kiss. A letter to a Fräulein Charlotte von Knobioch, in 1763, contains some amusing anecdotes concerning Swedenborg's alleged feats of clairvoyance and communication with ghosts together with Kant's skeptical comments on these stories. An exchange of letters with Herder in 1768 mentions Kant's progress on "the metaphysics of morals," a work Kant hoped to complete within a year. (In fact the Foundations oj the Metaphysics of Morals did not appear until 1785, the Metaphysics of Morals until 1797.) 3 Some people erroneously believed, after Lambert's death, that Kant's own theory derived from Lambert. In his letter to Biester, June 8, 1781 [ 1 6 8 ] , Kant explained that he wrote his Natural History of the Heavens before Lambert published a similar cosmological hypothesis and that Lambert had remarked on this similarity in his letter of 1765 [ 3 3 ] . Kant's letter to J. F. Gensichen, April 19, 1791 [466], also discusses the matter. Kant there explains that his own theory of the Milky Way was formulated six years earlier than Lambert's Cosmological Letters. This was in fact accurate.

4.

•

Introduction

elements of human knowledge," which should discuss "the universal and necessary possibilities of synthesizing and uniting of simple concepts." He had read Kant's essay, "Only Possible Proof of the Existence of God" (1763) and knew that Kant was working on a reconstruction of the method of metaphysics analogous to one which he himself advocated. Lambert suggests that they exchange letters on their research, a proposal which must have flattered Kant (who called Lambert "the greatest genius in Germany"), for he replied to Lambert with unusual alacrity. Lambert's letter is amusing also for its uncharitable observations (a prefiguration of C. P. Snow's "two cultures") on Greek scholars, antiquarians, art critics, and literati. Kant's reply self-confidently announces that he has finally found "the proper method for metaphysics and thereby also for the whole of philosophy"; but he is not yet prepared to publish his findings for, as he candidly admits, he lacks examples of propositions that can be demonstrated by means of this method. He has therefore put aside the project in order to devote himself to other essays, the subject of two of these being the metaphysical foundations of natural philosophy and the metaphysical foundations of practical philosophy.4 Lambert awaited these books impatiently, as he states in his next letter, but as it turned out, in vain. We can only guess what Kant had in mind in 1765, though many scholars regard this as the beginning of Kant's investigations leading to the Critique of Pure Reason. It becomes clear that the discovery of the problem to which Kant's letter of 1772 to Herz is devoted was one cause of Kant's repeated postponement of his project, though undoubtedly the heavy burden of his teaching duties (Kant .lectured up to twenty-eight hours a week, in addition to private seminars) was also important. Lambert's reply, February 3, 1766 [37], describes his own methodology at considerable length, utilizing the distinction between "formal" and "material" knowledge, a distinction that became an important part of Kant's analysis of metaphysics in the inaugural dissertation (1770) and also in his later critical writings. Formal knowledge, Lambert suggests, is expressed in "simple concepts" a priori; it is concerned only with the organization of non-formal or material knowledge. Complex, synthesized concepts 4 As a matter of fact, Kant published nothing under these titles until twenty years later, when the Metaphysical foundations of Natural Science appeared (1786).

Introduction

•

5

must be derived from simple concepts. The latter type of concepts, such as space and time, require direct acquaintance, that is, intuidon. The extent of Kant's indebtedness to Lambert is expressed in his letter to Bernoulli, November 16, 1781 [ 1 7 2 ] . Hamann. Kant's correspondence with J. G. Hamann (1730-88) does not discuss any technical questions of philosophy but reveals very strikingly the conflicting attitudes and convictions of these philosophers. Hamann, the "wizard (or Magus) of the North" as he was called, was the most improbable friend one could imagine for Kant. Passionate, mystical, intellectually and physically untidy, he was the antithesis of all that Kant and the Enlightenment represented. His flamboyant style of writing is a language all its own, using a veritable stream of consciousness technique full of classical and biblical allusions along with copious, often brilliant neologisms. Though at one time a deist, Hamann had undergone a sudden conversion to an intensely fundamentalist and emotional type of Christianity.3 The long letter of July 27, 1759, expresses Hamanns' astonishment, rage, and amusement at the efforts of Kant and J. C. Berens, a long-time friend of Hamann's, to convert him away from zealotry back to what these men regarded as rational deism. It is a brilliant letter, powerful and sarcastic.8 Less theatrical but nonetheless entertaining was Hamann's second letter of 1759 (not included here), and the circumstances that prompted it are again interesting for what they reveal about Kant. Apparently Kant and Hamann had discussed collaborating on a natural science textbook for children. (Kant's interest in education and his views on that topic are also shown in his letter to Wolke, March 28, 1776 [109].) Hamann lampoons the idea that Kant is capable of this and argues that a book by a philosopher, written for children, would have to be as ostensibly simple and babbling as a book by God, written for mere human beings. Hamann suggests basing physics on the biblical account of creation, presenting physical phenomena with a view to showing their divine origin. This suggestion could hardly have pleased Kant, and it is not surprising that he failed to reply to this or to Hamann's subsequent effusions on the subject. 3 Kierkegaard must have recognized Hamann as a prehguration of himself. He quotes Hamann on the title page of Fear and Trembling. 8 An English translation of some parts of the letter may be found in R. G. Smith, /. G. Hamann (New York: Harper & Bros., i960). The translation in the present volume is new and complete.

6.

• Introduction

Kant's only extant letters to Hamann were written in 1774. They contained a tedious discussion of Herder's Älteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts, which appeared anonymously in that year. The main topic concerned Herder's intention in discussing the occurrence of common symbols in both the biblical account of creation and the literature of pagan antiquity, and Herder's claim that this similarity reflected God's effort to instruct the human race. The letters do include some pleasant academic gossip concerning the promotion of a man of dubious piety—Hamann calls him a "Roman-apostolic-catholic-heretic-crypto-Jesuit"—to the professorship of theology, but they are otherwise rather boring. The most interesting remark made in them is Kant's concluding plea to Hamann (April 6. 1774 [86]) to communicate his further ideas "if possible, in the language of men. For I, poor earthling that I am, have not been properly trained to understand the divine language of an Intuitive Reason." Mendelssohn and the Popular Philosophers, Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86) was the most distinguished of the so-called popular philosophers of the German Enlightenment. A group of somewhat unsystematic intellectuals, more or less Leibnizian in outlook though often opposed to learned discourse and technical arguments, they preferred to appeal instead to common sense, the gesunder Menschenverstand, or healthy human understanding. The men usually included under this heading were J. G. H. Feder, C. Meiners. C. Garve, J. J. Engel, C. F. Nicolai, and J. E. Biester. Feder and Meiners taught at Göttingen, where they later founded the Philosophische Bibliothe\, a journal specifically devoted to combatting Kant's "critical philosophy." The journal survived only four volumes. Garve, a more sensitive man (his letters to Kant are genuinely moving), worked in Breslau. It was Garve's review of the Critique of Pure Reason (a review edited and distorted by Feder before its publication in January, 1782, in the Göttinger Gelehrte Anzeigen) that provoked Kant's wrath 7 and stimulated him to write certain parts of the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (the appendix of that work refers to the review). Nicolai, a friend of Mendelssohn's and of Lessing's, was editor of the Bibliothek^ der schönen Wissenschaften (1757-58), then of the Briefe, die neueste Litteratur betreffend (1759-65) and, most important, of the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothe\ " See his letter to Garve, August 7, 1783 [ 2 0 5 ] .

Introduction

•

7

(1765-1805), a propaganda organ of the Enlightenment. 8 Opposed to prejudice, superstition, orthodoxy, pietism, mysticism, and Jesuitism, he was, for all his zeal, platitudinous and shallow. Kant, who was for a time on cool but friendly terms with Nicolai, directed one of his last essays, "Ober die Buchmacherei (1798), against him, and Nicolai also became a target for Fichte, Goethe, and Schiller. Biester, who published the Berliner Monatsschrift, to which Kant contributed, was secretary to the minister of education, von Zedlitz, as well as librarian in the Royal Library. As one of Kant's chief ambassadors in the capital, his correspondence with Kant during the period 1792-94 tells us much about Kant's difficulties with the censorship of unorthodox religious views. The French Revolution is also touched upon in these letters. Of all these men, it was Mendelssohn for whom Kant had the greatest respect and affection. Unlike most of the popular philosophers, Mendelssohn did not disapprove of careful arguments and rigorous demonstration. Like Kant, he deplored the fall of philosophy, once the "queen of the sciences," to the shabby status of a facile, diverting parlor game. In 1763, Mendelssohn and Kant competed for the Berlin Academy Prize. Mendelssohn's Treatise on Evidence in the Metaphysical Sciences won, but the judges praised Kant's essay, An Inquiry into the Distinctness of the fundamental Principles of Natural Theology and Morals (Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral), and the two works were to have been published together. The topic proposed for this competition was the question: "Whether metaphysical truths generally, and in particular the fundamental principles of natural theology and morals, are capable of proofs as distinct as those of geometry." 9 Mendelssohn maintained that metaphysics can be as certain as geometry, though it is not as easily comprehended. Kant insisted that there are fundamental differences between metaphysics and mathematics, especially with regard to the role of definition or concept formation. Mathematics arrives at its concepts synthetically, from definitions; its concepts are constructed figures, from which 3 Nicolai is known also for a parody on Goethe's Sorrows of Werther: The Joys of Young Werther (Freuden des jungen Werthers [ 1 7 7 5 ] ) . 9 A translation of Kant's essay is included in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 194g), translated and edited bv L. W. Beck.

8.

• Introduction

we can derive only what we have originally put into them. 10 Validity is here independent of what exists in nature. Philosophy, however, cannot produce its own objects but must take them as given and try to see them as they are. Definitions are thus the end of philosophy rather than the beginning. "Metaphysics is without doubt the most difficult of human insights; but none has ever been written." The disagreement with Mendelssohn did not inhibit the start of a warm friendship. Mendelssohn must have written a cordial letter early in 1766 to which Kant's letter of February 7 [38] is a reply. In this letter he expresses his pleasure at the prospect of a correspondence with Mendelssohn, chats about a Jewish student whom Mendelssohn had recommended to Kant, and asks Mendelssohn to forward copies of Kant's Dreams of a Ghost-Seer Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics to various gendemen (including Lambert). Kant refers to it as einige Träumerey ("some reveries") and adds: "It is, as it were, a casual piece, containing not so much a working out of such questions as a hasty sketch of the way they should be treated." Evidendy the work estranged Mendelssohn by what the latter took to be an insincere tone, "between jest and earnest." In his answer to Mendelssohn (the latter's cridcal letter is not extant), April 8, 1766 [39], Kant forcefully defends his own character. In addition to this extended self-evaluation, unique in Kant's writings, he aiso indicates his view, of the worth of current metaphysics, whose "chimerical insights" lead to folly and error. An exposure of dogmatism is needed, says Kant, an organon, on which he is now at work. Kant speaks of having already reached "important insights" that will denne the proper procedure for metaphysics. The discussion of the soul, in this letter, gives us a brief statement of the position Kant defended in his Dreams of a GhostSeer. He is concerned with the relationship of material and spir10

It is interesting to see how Kant remained true to this early thesis throughout his critical writings. Indeed, the claim is generalized in the Critique of Pure Reason: all a priori knowledge depends on "what we have originally put into" our judgments. See Critique A xx, B ix, B xii, B xiii, B 130. I am grateful to Professor Samuel Todes for pointing out the similarity of these passages to me. See also Kant's letters on mathematics in this collection, as listed in the Index.

Introduction

•

9

itual substances but is not optimistic about solving such metaphysical problems. What are the powers o£ spiritual substances, and how can we discover the precise way in which souls are joined to material substances? Our philosophical fabrications are completely unhindered by any data when we discuss theories that purport to answer these questions. Kant suggests that there are matters (birth, life, and death) that we can never hope to understand by means of reason. The main theme of the Dreams of a Ghost-Seer, to which Kant is referring in this letter, is the parallel between the dreams and visions of Swedenborg, on the one hand, and the speculations of allegedly scientific metaphysics, on the other. Kant's essay tries to show how a clever manipulation of concepts can produce ostensible knowledge of the supersensible. He shows that such structures are mere airy possibilities of thought, undeserving of serious attention. The metaphysician's theories are ''dreams of reason," whereas those of the ghost-seer are "dreams of sensadon." He writes: "I do not know whether there are spirits; yes, what is more, I do not even know what the word 'spirit' means." Philosophy "excites the suspicion that it is found in bad company" when serious efforts are devoted to explaining the whims of fantastic persons. Kant's attitude toward traditional metaphysics as shown in this work and in the letter to Mendelssohn was, in 1766, quite close to Hume's. The philosopher's task should be to survey the nature and limits of our cognitive powers. Speculative metaphysics offers no possibility of scientific certainty, its principles being based on mere wish fulfilment. The tone of the critical philosophy is there, though Kant had not yet developed the major theses, nor even formulated the main questions, of the Critique of Pure Reason. II. 1770-81 Kant's position in the dissertation of IJJO. In 1770 Kant received the appointment he had long awaited, the professorship of logic and metaphysics. He sent copies of his inaugural dissertation, The Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds, to various scholars whose opinions he respected, among them Mendelssohn 1 1 and Lambert. In the accompanying letter to Lam11

Mendelssohn's response in the letter of December 25, [770 [ 6 3 ] , offers a number of significant criticisms of the dissertation, for example, of Kant's interpretation of Shaftesbury as a follower of Epicurus. Mendelssohn's criti-

18.

•

Introduction

bert, Kant states some of the main theses of the dissertation. Again, Kant is concerned with the need for a transformation of metaphysics, a program that the separadon of non-empirical from empirical principles will help to realize. His position at this dme, pardy influenced by Leibniz' Nouveaux Essais (1765), involved the separation of a "sense world" and an "intellectual world," with a corresponding schism in the structure of our cognitive faculties. In order to reconcile the independence of mathematics from experience with the applicability of mathematics to reality, Kant propounds the theory that space and time are forms of intuition, invariant characteristics of immediate experience. 12 This is essentially the position taken in the transcendental aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason. The Newtonian view, that space and time are "real beings" existing independently of objects, events, and observers, Kant argued, makes unintelligible how geometry (the science of space) can be known a priori to be valid for everything in space and time. Geometry, on Newton's view of space, would have to have the status of a merely empirical science. Ultimately, Kant attempts to mediate between this absolute theory of space and time and the theory of Leibniz. Though independent of what fills them, space and time are not independent of knowing minds. But Kant believed the consequence of his theory—that space and time are supplied by our own faculty of sensibility—to be that the objects that we perceive in space and time are only phenomenal images of noumenal realities, and such noumenal entities, if they are to be known at all, would have to be reached by some non-empirical means, viz., pure thought. Thus we have two "worlds": the world of our sensibility is "appearance," and that of our understanding is genuine, "intelligible" reality. As against Leibniz, the distinction between sensibility and understanding is made to be one of kind and not of degree—sensibility is passive; understanding is active or "spontaneous." In addition, along with the Platonic distinction of two worlds, Kant followed cisms of Kant's theory of time, and similar objections by Lambert, are answered in Kant's letter to Herz, February 2 1 , 1772 [70] and again in the Critique of Pure Reason A 3 6 - B 53 if. Kant thought that his view had been misinterpreted as a version of the subjective idealism of Berkeley. 12 Kant was led to this view particularly by the problem of space. His essay On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space ( 1 7 6 8 ) defended the thesis that conceptually incongruent but symmetric figures (for example, mirror images) cannot be distinguished without assuming, contrary to Leibniz but in agreement with Newton, an absolute space independent of all matter existing in it.

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11

Leibniz in assuming that the categories or non-empirical concepts of the intellect (causality, substance, necessity, and so on) have not only a "logical use," that is, in the organization of experience, but also a "real use," in which they provide knowledge of the world of true Being. It is this "dogmatic" position (in contrast to the skeptical view of metaphysics in Dreams of a Ghost-Seer) against which Kant reacted in the decade between 1770 and the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781. The change is recorded primarily in Kant's letters to Marcus Herz (1747-1803). Along with Kant's later correspondence with his apostatic disciples, these letters comprise perhaps the most significant philosophical material to be found in Kant's letters.13 Hers and the letter of tfjT.. Herz studied in Königsberg from 1755 to 1770 and acted as "respondent" or "public defender" for Kant's inaugural dissertation, a fact indicative of Kant's respect for him. After studying medicine in Halle, Herz returned to Berlin in 1774 to begin his medical practice. By 1776, he was also giving public lectures on the philosophy of Kant; several letters of 1778 deal with Herz's request for lecture notes from Kant. One of the most distinguished members of Herz's audience was von Zedlitz, the minister of spiritual affairs (which included education) to whom Kant later dedicated the Critique of Pure Reason. But Kant's confidence in Herz stemmed not only from the latter's philosophical talents; Herz was a physician, and Kant a hypochondriac. Most of Kant's letters to Herz make mention of symptoms and ailments, sometimes very extensively described, with discussions of possible treatments and requests for advice. Though Kant was never seriously ill, he constantly complained about his health and the adverse effects of his indisposition (mainly gastric and intestinal) on his work. 14 13

For a discussion of Herz and Kant, see L. W. Beck, "Kant's Letter to Marcus Herz," in Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis: BobbsMerriil Co., 1965), an essay that appeared originally in Philosophical Forum (Boston University), XHI ( 1 9 5 5 ) . For another recent discussion of this letter, see R. P. WoLff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963). Virtually all of the standard commentaries on Kant make some mention of the letter. Some scholars (for example, Norman Kemp Smith) see it as supporting the "patchwork theory" of the deduction of the categories, whereas others (for example, H. J. Paton) oppose this interpretation. There is a good discussion of the letter in T. D. Weldon, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (London: Oxford University Press, 1958). 14 In one of his last works, The Strife of the Faculties, Kant blamed his lifelong hypochondria on the narrowness o£ his chest.

12.

• Introduction

The letter of February 21, 1772, shows Kant's thinking at the point at which the Leibnizian aspects of the theory In his inaugural dissertation first became suspect to him. Suddenly he is troubled by the uncritical assumption he had made, that categories or "intellectual representations," which Kant had characterized only negatively as "ideas we employ that are not derived from our experience of objects," could nevertheless be supposed to agree with those objects and thus to represent things as they are. How can concepts that do not produce their objects (like God's thinking) and that are not produced in us by the objects to which they refer (like empirical concepts) be applicable a priori to an independent reality? In other words, Kant is asking for a justification or "deduction" of the "real use" of pure concepts when these concepts are to apply not simply to mathematical "objects" that we ourselves construct but to things existing independently of our minds. He wants to know how we can tell that a concept "spontaneously" created by the mind actually corresponds to anything. Kant says that he has found a way to classify these concepts "following a few fundamental laws of the understanding" and that in three months he will be ready with his solution—an extraordinarily sanguine prediction, as it turned out. For by the time Kant had completed the Critique of Pure Reason, the "recollection of David Hume," as he characterizes it in the Introduction to the Prolegomena, had "interrupted [his] dogmatic slumbers. . . . ," and the problem stated as it is in this letter to Herz was found to be incapable of solution. The categories could not be shown to agree with the nature of things, if "thing" is taken to refer to noumenal entities in a non-empirical world. Though Kant had not yet arrived at the most distinctive argument of his critical position, the transcendental deduction, he had evidently reached a form of the table of categories and, more important, a formulation of what was to become the central problem of the Critique of Pure Reason, viz., how are synthetic a priori judgments possible. Here in the letter to Herz he mentions that work for the first time by name. It was this momentous work that took up most of Kant's attention in the "?ilent decade" of the seventies. Kant published very little between 1770 and 1781, and the number of letters he wrote is also small. His correspondence with Hamann in 1774 has already been mentioned. A few letters to Herz tell of his progress or lack of progress on the Critique, along

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13

with some very detailed discussion of his physical debilities, and these letters are not only biographically important but help us to see how intimate the friendship of these two men must have been. The correspondence with Lavater and Wolke, however, presents us with an entirely different side of Kant's intellectual interests. Lavater. J. C. Lavater ( 1 7 4 1 - 1 8 0 1 ) was a Swiss poet, mystic, and a renowned physiognomist, a man who influenced Goethe and who was also close to Hamann. Lavater was an ardent reader of Kant, his Lieblingsschriftsteller. His letters to Kant indicate that the literary and learned world was awaiting Kant's new writings with great eagerness. "Are you dead to the world?" Lavater asks. "Why is it that so many scribble who cannot write, while you who write so well are silent?" Lavater tells Kant that he and his countrymen are anxious to see the Critique. In one letter he asks Kant to evaluate his own book, on faith and prayer, somehow imagining that Kant would approve of it. One can imagine how Lavater's enthusiasm for Kant must have been tempered by the latter's reply (April 28, 1773 [99] and [100]) for Kant's views were already those of Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. The letters are in fact a clear and eloquent summary of Kant's position. A certain cooling off on Lavater's part is confirmed by his failure to reply to Kant for almost a year, although the two men afterward remained on good terms and Lavater later once wrote to Kant of his jov at having found someone to talk with "to satiety and still not to satiety" about Kant's ideas. Though the correspondence between them ended, Kant mentions Lavater a number of times in various works, critically but not disrespectfully. He had no patience for the Lavaterian attempt to analyze character by means of the study of facial lines, calling it "indistinct concepts without any order," and in his lectures on anthropology in 1785 Kant maintained that physiognomists are correct in their analyses of character only when they know the people they are supposedly analyzing. Elsewhere Kant refers to Lavater as a Schwärmer—a fanatic or enthusiast inspired by a delusion—but Kant did not always use this word abusively. Letters on Education: Wol\e. Kant's interest in education was always intense, to such an extent that he was even willing to interrupt his work on the Critique in order to write and speak in 15 Cf. his reference to Maria von Herbert as die kleine Schwärmerin letter to Elisabeth Motherbv, February n , 1793 [559].

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• Introduction

in a

support of the educational reforms of an experimental school, the Philanthropin. This institution was founded in Dessau in 1774 by J. B. Basedow, a man whose views on education Kant regarded highly. Kant used Basedow's Methodenbuch as the text in his lectures on practical pedagogy in the winter semester of 1776-77. The Philanthropin was based more or less on the liberal principles of Rousseau's £mile.le From the very beginning, the school was in serious financial difficulties, for which Basedow's enthusiasm failed to compensate. Kant's correspondence with Basedow and the men who replaced him, C. H . Wolke and J. H . Campe, reflects Kant's efforts to keep the Philanthropin in business.17 The most important of these letters, for a view of Kant's ideas on education and especially on religious instruction, is the letter to Wolke of 1776 [109]. Kant believed that a child "must be raised in freedom, but in such a way that he will allow others to be free as well" (Reflexionen zur Anthropologie, No. 1473). In the letter to Wolke, he makes explicit his opposition to traditional methods of education and especially to customary religious education. Kant urges that a child not even be introduced to prayer until his understanding has matured to such a degree that he can understand (what Kant regards as) the true purpose of devotional acts, viz., to apprehend his duties as if the latter were divine commands. III. Letters in the 1780's and 1790's Reactions to the Critique of Pure Reason: Mendelssohn and Garve. Readers of Kant who find him difficult to understand may be reassured by the response of Kant's own contemporaries to the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason. Mendelssohn, on whom Kant had counted heavily to help disseminate the new philosophy, called it dieses Nervensaftverzehrendes Wer\—"this nerve-juice-consuming book"! Garve, too, proved disappointingly 16 The "natural" method of education at the Philanthropin insisted on treating children as children. Powdered hair, swords, gilded coats, and makeup were forbidden. The children had short haircuts and wore sailor jackets. They learned languages in a sort of "Berlitz" program. The curriculum included Latin, German, French, mathematics, geography, physics, music, dancing, drawing, and physical education. Religion was taught in such a way that sectarian distinctions in theology were completely avoided. 17 To this end, Kant published several appeals for subscriptions in the Königsberger gelehrte und politische Zeitung.

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15

unsympathetic. T o Mendelssohn and to Garve Kant wrote in 1783, carefully setting forth some of the main theses of the Critique and defending himself against various criticisms, especially that of "unpopularity" in style of writing. Kant challenges Garve to compose a deduction of the categories that will make pleasant reading, or to try to construct a "whole new science" without the difficult arguments and distinctions in the Critique (to Garve, August 7 [205]; to Mendelssohn, August 16 [206]). These letters taken together provide not only a nice introduction to those theses but also show Kant's view (in 1783) on two matters which his critics have frequently debated and about which it must be admitted Kant himself was never entirely clear: the distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself, on the one hand, and the distinction between sensible and supersensible objects. Talking about the first distinction. Kant says to Garve that it is a difference between two concepts or ways of talking about all given objects. Viewed in this light, the distinction does not commit Kant to the two "worlds" theory of the dissertation. In the letter to Mendelssohn, however, Kant speaks of the existence of two radically different kinds of entities. The Critique, he says, does not aim to deny the existence of objects (Gegenstände) that are not objects of possible experience; in fact, the existence of such entities is required by it! It would seem, then, that the claim that there exist supersensible objects (übersinnliche Gegenstände") must be distinguished from the appearance versus thing-in-itself dualism, for, as Kant had indicated only a week earlier, in distinguishing appearances from things as they are in themselves, the phrase "thing-in-itself" refers not to some object other than the object we encounter in experience but to that same object considered apart from its relation to a knowing subject. In the decades following, the problem of the status of the Kantian thing-in-itself became one of the main targets for Kant's critics. Discussion centered around the question whether Kant's theory of perception entails the claim that unknowable things in themselves are the cause of our sense impressions. Kant's ablest student, J. S. Beck, attempted to save him from inconsistency by interpreting his theory to mean that "thing-in-itself" is just another way of talking about the object that appears and that it is this phenomenal object, not some mysterious supersensible entity, that affects our senses. Kant's answers to Beck's letters do not positively endorse this interpretation—by then Kant was old and, as he told his followers, no longer equipped for

16.

• Introduction

overly subtle discussions—but the letter to Garve may be taken as one piece of evidence in support of Beck's interpretation. Disciples and Critics. The sudden profusion of letters after 1783 attests to the impact of the Critique of Pure Reason on the intellectual life of Germany and Europe. Though Kant's reputation in the learned world was already high, his fame now became extended well beyond the sphere of the universities. Kant's philosophy was the topic of discussion in literary salons and court gatherings. Young ladies wrote to him for moral guidance, and religious zealots and political absolutists, deploring the popularity of his liberal ideas, wrote to him to try to convert him. Kant was hailed as the benefactor of mankind, liberator of the human spirit and defender of freedom. Journals were founded to spread the critical philosophy, and several of Kant's students wrote popularizations of his work to make him understandable to the general reading public. The progress of Kant's philosophy did not go unchallenged, however. An upsurge of fanaticism, religious reaction, and political interference in the form of censorship and loyalty oaths was about to begin. As early as 1783 Kant heard from his friend F. V. L. Plessing that the enemies of the Enlightenment were gathering strength, a lament which Plessing repeated in his letter of March 15, 1784 [226]. Rumor had it that "a Protestant king is supposed secretly to be a J-s-t!" wrote Plessing. The Jesuits, "those hellish spirits," had poisoned the hearts of princes. But as far as the government was concerned, Plessing's dire warnings were a few years premature. Kant's most vocal enemies, at this time, were not political figures but the old guard philosophy professors who defended Leibniz and Wolff. Although Kant was attacked and misunderstood by popular philosophers, empiricists (who assailed Kant for subscribing to synthetic a priori judgments), and rationalists (who assailed him for limiting knowledge to the domain of experience), the favorable reactions of younger men more than compensated for these hostile opinions. The spread of Kantianism was aided by the dedication of Kant's new disciples at the University of Jena, especially C. G. Schütz, C. F. Schmid, and K . L . Reinhold. The Allgemeine Literaturzeitung, to which Kant contributed, did much to promote the critical philosophy. Schütz, whose correspondence with Kant is of interest in tracing the progress of Kant's writings after the Critique of Pure Reason, was the author of the first sensible review of the Critique, and it was he who

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17

persuaded Kant to write a review of Herder's Ideen (1785) for the ^JL-Z. 1 8 (Schütz was moved to tears fay Kant's refusal of the generous honorarium offered by the journal.) Schmid's support of Kantianism came in the form of an elucidatory dictionary of Kantian terminology, Wörterbuch zum leichteren Gebrauche der Kantischen Schriften (1788), and Reinhold's Letters concerning the Kantian Philosophy (1786/87 in the Deutsche Merf^ür; 1790 as a book) was most important in popularizing Kant. 1 3 By 1787, when Reinhoid was professor of philosophy at the University of Jena, people spoke of the "Kant-Reinhold" philosophy—a phrase that lost its cogency, however, when Reinhold later became a follower of Fichte. 20 Reinhold's letters to Kant, in 1787 and 1788, are rhapsodic in praising the critical philosophy and its creator. They also contain some nice academic gossip, including some anecdotes about Kant's enemy at Jena, a Professor Ulrich, who made a practice of inviting Reinhold's students to dinner in order to seduce them away from the study of Kant! Kant's letter to Reinhoid, in 1788, expresses his opinion of various contemporaries and states his approval of Reinhold's work. Of greater philosophical interest, however, are Kant's letters in the following year, in which he gives a lengthy account of his objections to the Wolffian philosopher, Eberhard. J. A. Eberhard, professor of philosophy at Halle, was founder of the Philosophisches Magazin, a periodical dedicated to destroying Kant's philosophy. He denied the originality of Kant's analytic/ synthetic distinction, rejected the "Copernican revolution" with its consequent limitation of the understanding to objects of sensible 18 In February, 1785, Schütz wrote Co Kant saying that Herder ought to take pride in Kant's discussion of his book—the review was generally recognized as Kant's even though it appeared unsigned. But Herder's reaction to it was not what Schütz predicted, as can be seen from a letter Herder wrote to Hamann in which he expresses his vexation and accuses Kant of being bitter toward him for having decided not to follow the path of his former teacher's "verbal juggling." Herder objects especially to being treated like a schoolboy now that he is forty years old and a thinker in his own right. 19 Reinhoid, who was born in Vienna in 1758, started his career as a Jesuit. Stirred by the Enlightenment under Emperor Josef, he came to reject most orthodox dogmas and eventually he abandoned the Jesuit order and was converted to Protestantism. In 1783, in Weimar, Reinhoid became the son-inlaw of C. M. Wieland, the famous novelist. 20 Reinhold's uncommon candor is shown by his public pronouncement, while still at the height of his fame, thac Fichte had refuted him. He died, virtually forgotten, in 1823.

18.

• Introduction

intuition, and argued that reason, being capable of intellectual intuitions, can furnish its own "material" without the aid of the senses, Kant, in his letters to Reinhold, is especially critical of Eberhard's attempt to use the principles of contradiction and sufficient reason as devices for achieving knowledge of objects. Some of the material in these letters was later incorporated into Kant's polemical essay against Eberhard, On a Discovery according to Which All New Critique of Pure Reason Is Supposed To Be Obviated by an Earlier One (lieber eine Entdeckung nach der alle neue Kriti\ der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht werden soll [1790]), in which Kant attacks the metasensible use of reason, refutes Eberhard's objections to his notion of synthetic judgments, and offers an interpretation of Leibniz that contains the argument that Leibniz's theory requires completion by Kant's own philosophy. The. main points in this essay against the philosophical ancien regime may be found in the letters to Reinhold of 1789. Other Opposition: Marburg and Berlin. Eberhard's controversy with Kant was by no means the only occasion on which the entrenched partisans of competing philosophies did batde with Kant and his followers. In Marburg the conflict came to a head earlier than elsewhere. At the probable instigation of the' Wolffians, Kant's theories were investigated for alleged impiety or skepticism, and in 1786 lecturers were actually forbidden to discuss his philosophy. 21 Apparently Kant's critic Feder, still stung by the untoward aftereffects of his hostile review of the Critique, was one of the main forces behind the ban. Meanwhile in Berlin, the death of Frederick the Great (1786) and the accession of Frederick William II created a climate that proved to be hostile not only to Kant but to all the Enlightenment, including some of Kant's bitter opponents. Whereas the Wolffians regarded Kant as insufficiendy rationalistic, the inspired irrationalists who now came to power could see him only as the embodiment of rationalism and as the enemy of orthodox, historical Christianity, an intractable critic of every form of mysticism and zealotry. The actual suppression of heresy did not get seriously started until 1788. As late as December, 1787, Kant learned from J. C. Berens that the new king was still allowing the same freedom 21

See notes to Kant's letter to J. Bering, April 7, 1786 [266].

Introduction

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19

of the press enjoyed under his predecessor (Berens to Kant, December 5, 1787 [3x0]). But one year later, the troubles had begun (Berens to Kant, October 25, 1788 [338]). It was suspected in some quarters that since Kant had claimed that reason was incapable of providing theoretical knowledge of the supersensible, he must be secretly sympathetic to the religious reactionaries. His friends implored him to make his position emphatically clear so as to stop the fanatics. The bookdealer Meyer wrote from Berlin (September 5, 1788 [ 3 3 3 ] ) asking Kant to compose an essay on freedom of the press to fight the growing suppression. Kiesewetter and Biester kept Kant informed of developments in the capital, where, for a dme, the liberal theologians and clerics paid little attention to the government's edicts on religion. In the decade that followed, the antics of Frederick William II and his pious counselors were to become more than the joking matter they first appeared to be. The king's mystical visions and sexual escapades are reported in a number of Kiesewetter's gossipy letters of 1790 and after, a few samples of which have been included in this collection. The heretic-hunting mood reached its climax, for Kant's career, in 1793-94, when Kant's publications on religion were brought under the censorship of the royal Commission on Spiritual Affairs. In 1792, Fichte had sought Kant's advice on how to get his own Critique of Revelation approved by the censor of theology in the University of Halle. Thus, it was not oniv the government that sought to suppress freedom of thought but some of the theological faculties in the universities themselves. Kant explained to Stäudlin (May 4, 1793 [574]) what he had tried to do in his Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone and how he had presented the book to the theological faculty in Königsberg to avoid conflict with the authorities. In the fall of 1794, however, the order condemning Kant's book, and any further expression of his unorthodox views, was issued by the king's minister, Woellner. Kant was obedient, though his response to the king (letter [642]) is in no way obsequious. Kant's religion of "rational faith" is given a powerful statement here. Granting the forcefulness of Kant's letter to Frederick William II, we must admit nevertheless that Kant was a constitutionally timid person. Even twenty years earlier Kant had shown something of this character when, in considering an opportunity for a better position, he confessed to Herz that "all change frightens

20.

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Introduction

me" (early April, 1778 [ 1 3 4 ] ) . Now in his old age Kant was unwilling to spend his remaining energy on political (or for that matter philosophical) disputes. His letters of 1789 and after speak repeatedly of his advancing age and increasing frailty. Again and again he excuses himself for failing to act vigorously against his various opponents. Biester respectfully but disappointedly accepted Kant's decision to comply with the royal decree commanding Kant's silence (December 17, 1794 [646]). Only after the death of Frederick William II in 1797 did Kant feel himself freed from his promise (on the rather casuistic grounds that the pronoun in "Your Majesty's servant" referred specifically to that monarch, so that the obligation to remain silent had been undertaken only to him). Though Kant took a lively interest in the public controversies and political turbulence of the decade following 1789, he devoted himself as much as possible to the completion of his philosophical system. Only on rare occasions did he allow himself to be distracted from this work. One such occasion was the famous Mendelssohn-Jacobi feud in the 1780's. Two others, of more personal than literary or philosophical interest, were the Plessing affair and the tragic case of Maria von Herbert. Each of these three topics requires some explanation. Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Jacobi. The literary quarrel between Mendelssohn and Jacobi 22 dominated the discussions of German intellectuals for several years, until finally Kant himself was drawn into the dispute. (Kant's essay, What Is Orientation in Thinking? contains his answer to the disputants, both of whom had attempted to gain his support.) The story of this controversy is somewhat complicated. F . H . Jacobi ( 1 7 4 3 - 1 8 1 9 ) , the "philosopher of faith," had maintained that Spinoza's philosophy contained the only logically acceptable system of metaphysics. Since this system was monistic, however, it entailed the denial of any genuine theism. To accept Spinozism was therefore to become an atheist. Hume, according to Jacobi, had performed an important service by exposing the pretensions of natural theology, for he had made it clear that God is an affair of the heart, not of reason, and that philosophy (that is, Spinozism) must be givfcn up in the name of faith. Jacobi also argued for the possibility of immediate intuitions of a supersensible reality. Like Kant, however, he held that 22

See also n. 1 to the letter from Marcus Herz, February 27, 1786 [260].

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21

the field of knowledge is restricted to objects of possible experience. Reason is incapable of penetrating beyond the sensible.23 So much the worse for reason. Now Lessing's position was not altogether opposed to Jacobi's. Lessing had published some works of the deist H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768) (under the title WOldenbüttel Fragments) but unlike the deists, Lessing did not believe religious truths capable of proof. A pioneer of the "higher criticism," Lessing believed that faith rests on inner experience and that religious ideas are to be judged by their effect on conduct. Lessing died in 1781, iust after he had admitted to Jacobi that Spinoza's theory seemed to him to be correct. This is what Jacobi wrote to Mendelssohn in 1783, and from this disclosure arose their furious controversy, a controversy on which some were even to put the blame for Mendelssohn's death in I786."4 Since pantheism seemed to Jacobi indistinguishable from atheism, he was shocked at Lessing's confession. Mendelssohn, however, took Jacobi's attack on Lessing to be also an attack on himself, and even though Mendelssohn was not a pantheist he felt called upon to defend Spinoza and Lessing. In his book Morning Lessons (1785), Mendelssohn challenged Jacobi, who replied by publishing his answer to Mendelssohn and their letters to , each other. Herder and Goethe were drawn into the argument, and both of them rejected Jacobi's equadon of Spinozism with atheism. What Lessing had said to Jacobi was that orthodox ideas about .God were of no utility to him. God is One and All, and if Lessing had to name anyone as philosophically sound, it would have to be Spinoza. Like Spinoza, Lessing believed human actions to be determined. God is the ultimate cause of the world order, and everything that exists is a part of him. "Why should not the ideas that God has of real things be these real things themselves?" 23 Unlike Kant, Jacobi maintained that we perceive tilings as they are in themselves. He also rejected Kant's formalism in ethics and defended the possibility of immediate moral intuitions. Jacobi's criticism of Kant's theory of the thing-in-itseif became famous and was iacer repeated by various critics: the affirmation of things-in-themselves, he argued, can be justified only by using the causal principle, which principle is supposed to be subjectively grounded and applicable only intraphenomenally. An epigrammatic remark of Jacobi's was often quoted: "Without it [the assumption of things-in-themselves] I could not get into the system; with it, I could not stay." 24 See notes to the letter from Marcus Herz, February 27, 17S6 [260].

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• Introduction

asked Lessing. 25 One consequence of the Pantheismusstreit, as it came to be called, was the revival of interest in the study of Spinoza. Another, as has been mentioned, was Kant's essay on orientation. The main letters mentioning the feud are those from Mendelssohn (October 16, 1785), Biester (June 1 1 , 1786), and Herz (February 27, 1786 [260]) 26 and Kant's letter to Herz (April 7, 1786 [267]). In the last of these, Kant condemns Jacobi as guilty of a frivolous and affected "inspiration" (Genieschwärmerey) and goes on to speak of "the excellent Moses," so that it is clear where Kant's sympathies lay. L'affaire Plessing. When the editors of Kant's correspondence were assembling their manuscripts, it was with considerable reluctance that an indelicate letter of Plessing's (April 3, 1784 [228]) was included in the Prussian Academy edition of Kant's correspondence. Plessing's friendship with Kant is a significant counterexample for any theory that pictures Kant the "stern moralist" as utterly inflexible, prudish, or inhuman. F . V . L. Plessing (17491806) was a fascinating and unstable person who figured not only in Kant's life but also in Goethe's (whose Harzreise im Winter deals with Plessing). In his youth, Plessing studied at one university after another, unable to settle on any one subject or in any one place. His life was beset with neurotic and financial difficulties involving his family. In 1782 he came to know Kant and Hamann in Königsberg and decided that it might still be possible to make something of himself, whereupon he studied for the doctorate with Kant. Plessing did in fact become a philosopher,27 and some of his correspondence with Kant is concerned with his philosophy of history. He was a brooding, troubled man who found himself able to accept Kant's negative doctrines, though he remained basically dissatisfied with Kant's faith grounded on morality. As Plessing's letters to Kant make clear, Plessing had become involved in (and had lost) a paternity suit, and Kant had helped him by acting as intermediary in transmitting Plessing's maintenance payments. Kant's willingness to become involved in such an unprofessional and undignified problem seems to reveal a less 25

"On the Reality of Things outside God," an essay for Mendelssohn. These are not of any intrinsic interest and have not been included here. 27 In 1788 he accepted a professorship at Duisberg, one of the smallest universities in Germany, far removed from the frontiers of intellectual debate, which was just as he wished. 26

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23

rigoristic attitude on his part than one might have expected. A careful reading of the letter will disclose that Kant's tolerance of Plessing's human failings did not, however, extend to a condoning of the "unnatural" and calculated practice of birth control. Plessing's arguments against Kant on this matter show a lively wit. It is unfortunate that Kant's answer to Plessing is not available to us. (Kant's highly puritanical attitude toward sex is made very explicit, however, in another letter, where even marital sexual relations are viewed as unsavory and the sexual libertine likened to a cannibal! [To C. G. Schütz, July 10, 1797 ( 7 6 1 ) ] ) Maria von Herbert. Whatever difficulties Kant's philosophy may have encountered in Prussia and other northern German states, the spread of Kantian ideas in Austria and southern Germany aroused even more opposition. (This may be seen in the letters of M. Reuss [699] and C. Stang [ 7 1 5 ] , two Benedictine followers of Kant.) In the town of Klagenfurt in southern Austria, however, there lived a Baron Franz Paul von Herbert, one of the few people in reactionary Austria who was interested in the philosophy of Kant. The extent of his dedication is shown by the fact that in 1789, "driven by a philosophical itch" (as K . Vorländer puts it), 23 he left his lead factory, wife, and child to journey to Weimar, then to Jena, for the sake of studying Kant's philosophy. In 1791 he returned to Klagenfurt, bringing with him some of the revolutionary spirit of the critical philosophy. Herbert's house then became a center for the passionate discussion of Kant's philosophy. It was, in the words of one of Fichte's students, "a new Athens," dedicated to, among other things, the improvement of religion, a task that required replacing piety with morality. Maria, the young sister of Franz Paul, who participated in these discussions, was born in 1769. In family circles she was called "Mizza" and her face was said to be very beautiful. If her physical appearance is somewhat a matter of conjecture to us, the intensity of her emotions and the sensitivity of her mind (notwithstanding her charmingly bad spelling) are not. In 1791 she wrote her first letter to Kant, a letter full of despair, which impressed him so deeply that he showed it to his friend Borowski and prepared a careful preliminary draft of his answer to her plea. Erhard, a friend of her brother's and of Kant's, explained in a letter that she had thrown herself into the arms of a certain man "in order to realize - 3 K . Vorländer, Immanuel Meiner, 1924), II, p. 1 1 6 .

24.

• Introduction

Kant, der Mann und das Werk. (Leipzig: Felix

an idealistic love." Evidendy the man turned out to be a cad for, as Erhard says, he "misused her." Maria fell in love a second time, and for a while she deceived her new lover about her previous relationship. When she finally disclosed her earlier affair to him, his love for her cooled. In her letter, she begs Kant for guidance. Kant's answer is interesting for what it reveals about his own sensitivity to the nuances of emotional and moral problems and about his views on love. He presents his statement in the manner of a sermon, and there is a gently didactic tone throughout. Kant seems willing to make seme concessions to the natural weaknesses of human beings. He says in effect that, although we have a duty to abstain from lying and from insincerity, we are to be forgiven for failing to pour out every secret of our hearts to someone we love. An ideal love would consist in mutual esteem and a totally uninhibited sharing, but the inability to be utterly open with another person is a sort of reticence that lies in human nature and does not constitute a weakness of character. These consoling remarks are followed, however, by some more characteristically Kantian moralizing: Maria is not to have any moral credit for confessing her earlier deception, if the motive of her disclosure was a desire to achieve peace of mind rather than true repentence for having lied. Nor should she brood over the new lover's change of heart; if his affection does not return, it was probably only sensual in the first place. Besides, the value of one's life does not depend on whether or not one achieves happiness. The second and third letters Maria sent to her "spiritual physician" are less agitated than the first, but it is not so much resignation as a deeper despair and a sense of overwhelming apathy that breathes through them. The inner emptiness she expresses, the sense of being "almost superfluous" to herself, of being incapable of significant action (even morality has become uninterestingly easy for her, since she feels no temptation to transgress its laws), suggest a beautiful personality destroying itself by the very clarity of its self-awareness. Maria tells Kant, in her third letter (sometime early in 1794 [ 6 1 4 ] ) that she had in fact been on the point of suicide but that though death would please her she will not take her own life out of consideration for morality and the feelings of her friends. Kant did not answer either of these letters but sent them to Elizabeth Motherby, the daughter of an English friend, as a warning to the young woman (whose "good training had, however, made such a warning unnec-

Introduction

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25

essary," Kant said) of what happens to ladies when they think too much and fail to control their fantasies! For all his perceptiveness and liberalism, Kant was not enthusiastic about women's rights or greatly concerned about the frustrations suffered by intelligent ladies in a society that regarded them as merely useful or decorative ornaments.29 In 1803, nine years after her last letter, Maria did in fact commit suicide. From Kant to Fichte. Although Kant's philosophical letters in the 1790's touch on a great number of topics, some of the most interesting letters are those that show the gradual defection of Kant's once ardent admirers and that enable us to see the development of Kant's own thinking in response to their criticisms. It is a pity that there are no very serious philosophical exchanges with Fichte in the correspondence.30 However, the correspondence with S. Maimon, J. S. Beck, and J. H. Tieftrunk provides a wealth of discussion of just those issues (principally the problems concerning the Ding an sich, the "affecting" of sensibility, and the primary significance of synthesis, or Zusammensetzung) that make the transition from Kant to Fichte comprehensible. In 1789 Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) sent Kant the manuscript of his Essay on the Transcendental Philosophy ("Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie [1790]). Their mutual friend Herz described Maimon :o Kant as "formerly one of the rawest Polish Jews" who by virtue of his brilliance and perseverance had miraculously managed to educate himself in all the sciences. (See Herz's letter, April 7, 1789 [351]-) Herz had read the book, and it was on his advice that Maimon asked for Kant's opinion of it. Kant answered Maimon's criticisms in a letter to Herz (May 26, 29 T h e limitations of Kant's sympathy for egalitarianism is shown also in his attitude toward the rights of servants. See his letter to C. G. Schütz, July 10, ! 7 9 7 [ 7 6 1 ] . hi which he discusses the right to possess another person (a household servant) as if the latter were a thing. 30 Kant's letter of February 2, 1792 [504] containing his advice to Fichte on how to deal with the censorhip authorities in Halle is included in this collection; it contains a good statement of Kant's religious beliefs. A number of other letters in 1792 concern Kant's efforts to help Fichte publish his Critique of Revelation (Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung) and, with the subsequent confusion as to its authorship, Fichte's explanation and apologies for the confusion, and so on. (See notes to the letter to Fichte of February 2, 1792 [504].) The book was attributed to Kant himself, partly because it came from his publisher, Härtung. Härtung had inadvertently left out the Preface, in which Fichte spoke of the work as "my first venture before the public," a phrase that would have made clear that the anonymous author was noc Kant.

26.

• Introduction

1789 [362]), and callcd his work a book full of "the most subtle investigations" written by an astute critic who had understood him better than any other. Maimon wrote again in July, 1789, expressing his gratitude for Kant's rejoinder, though he was not satisfied with Kant's reply. He wrote several times in 1790, again in 1791 (see his letter of September 20 [486]), 1792, and 1793, but Kant did not answer him. 31 Maimon's criticism of Kant in 1789 already pointed the way to Fichte and the idealist movement that was soon to take hold. He denied Kant's basic distinction between passive sensibility and the active, spontaneous understanding. He maintained that the human mind is part of an infinite world soul that produces not only the form but also the content of experience. The understanding is intuitive, not merely discursive. Maimon accepted the negative, antidogmatic part of Kant's theory as correct but rejected the positive theory of the thing-in-itself (which he interpreted to mean the claimed existence of a thinkable entity without any determinate characteristics) as inconceivable. We cannot form a clear concept of either an object-in-itself or of a subjectin-itself. The thing-in-itself loses its character of thinghood, in Maimon's philosophy, and becomes merely an irrational limit of rational cognition, the idea of an endless task whose completion is constantly retreating as knowledge advances. The self-contradictory assumption of the existence of things independent of all consciousness arose in the attempt to explain the origin of the "content" of appearances; but there is in fact no content or material of experience independent of form. The distinction between the matter and form of knowledge is only a contrast between a complete and an incomplete consciousness of what is present to us, the incomplete consciousness being what we refer to as the given, that irrational residue that we distinguish from the a priori forms of consciousness. The contrast is only one of degree; form and matter are the terminal members of an infinite series of gradations of consciousness. The given is therefore only an idea of the limit of this series. 31 In 1794, Kant spoke disparagingly of Maimon, in a letter to Reinhold on March 28 [620]. It is one of the few places where Kant makes an anti-Semitic remark. Perhaps it should be forgiven, on the grounds that Kant was extremely sensitive to criticism and to the apostasy of his followers, and 1794 was a bad year for him not only on these two accounts but also because of his troubles with the official proscription of his work on religion. The persecution from which Kant suffered seemed serious enough to Kant's friends to warrant an offer of asylum from one of them (the educator J. H. Campe).

Introduction

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27

While on some issues Maimon took Hume's position against Kant's (for example, he maintained that the concept of causality is the product of habit, not a pure concept of the understanding), his indebtedness to Leibniz is also evident. For some reason Maimon called himself a skeptic, but his rejection of Kant's account of things-in-themselves and the given, along with his conception of the human understanding as part of the divine understanding, clearly foreshadows Fichte and the development of "absolute idealism." In fact, Fichte wrote to Reinhoid, in 1795, "My esteem for Maimon's talent is boundless. I firmly believe and am ready to prove that through Maimon's work the whole Kantian philosophy, as it is understood by everyone including yourself, is completely overturned. . . . All this he has accomplished without anyone's noticing it and while people even condescend to him. I think that future generations will mock our century bitterly." 32 Kant's correspondence with Jakob Beck ( 1 7 6 1 - 1 8 4 0 ) contains not only some of the most penetrating criticisms of Kant's theory but also an indication of how Kant was himself being influenced by the men he denounced as "my hypercritical friends." By 1799, the seventy-five-year-old Kant (who complained to Garve, September 2 1 , 1798 [820] that his condition was reduced to that of a vegetable) was so saddened by the independent line that his former students had taken that he angrily criticized the position of Fichte (whose books he had not read) and Beck (whose position he had virtually adopted as his own) in an "Open letter on Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre" (the last letter in this collection, August 7, 1799). There he charged that his Critique of Pure Reason had not been intended as a propaedeutic to any future system of metaphysics, that it was in fact the complete statement of pure philosophy, and that no "standpoint" (the allusion is to Beck's Only Possible Standpoint from which the Critical Philosophy Must Be Judged) of any interpreter or commentator is required in order to comprehend it. All of these remarks are either false or misleading. The occasion of the open letter was a challenge put to Kant by a reviewer in the Erlanger Literaturzeitung, January n , 1799, who asked Kant whether his theories were really meant to be taken literally 32 There is a fairly lengthy discussion of Maimon's importance in Richard Kroner's Von Kant bis Hegel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Möhr [Paul Siebeck], 1 9 2 1 - 2 4 ) . A more recent work devoted entirely to Maimon is Samuel Atlas' From Critical to Speculative Idealism: The Philosophy of Solomon Maimon (The Hague: Martinus Nijhorf, 1964).

28.

• Introduction

{buchstäblich) or as interpreted by Fichte or Beck. Kant's personal attack on Fichte as a "treacherous friend" may have been encouraged by his overly zealous disciple Johann Schultz, on whom Kant relied for an account of Fichte's position and whom Kant had earlier (see the letter to J. A . Schlettwein, May 29, 1797 [752]) endorsed as his most reliable expositor. Certainly, neither Fichte nor Beck had done anything to deserve it. Fichte's official reply, in the form of an open letter to Schelling, was temperate. Privately, however, he declared Kant's theory to be "total nonsense" unless given a Fichtean interpretation; he even called Kant "no more than three-quarters of a mind" who had "mightily prostituted himself." 33 That the Critique was supposed to be a propaedeutic to a reconstruction of metaphysics was not only asserted by Kant himself in numerous passages in the Critique but clearly implied by him in his references to the system of metaphysics he intended to compose when "the critical part of [his] task" was finished. This is what he had written to L. H. Jakob [303] and to Reinhold [322] in 1787 and 1788 in connection with his completion of the third Critique.** A sketch of Kant's planned system of metaphysics was even included in a letter to Beck in 1792 [500], and the oudine Kant gives there agrees with the reorganized form of the Critique that Beck recommended in his own letters. It would seem then that the doctrinal gulf between Kant and his erstwhile disciples was not at all as wide as Kant seems to suggest in the declaration against Fichte. Like Maimon, Beck denied the positive role that Kant's theory of perception seemed to have given to the thing-in-itself. Beck argued that when Kent spoke of objects affecting our sensibility it could only be phenomenal objects that he had meant, not an 33

K . Vorländer, op. dt., II, 265. Kant's statement to Jakob that on completion of the critical part of his plan he could proceed to the dogmatic is puzzling if one recalls Kant's customary use of the word "dogmatic" to stigmatize the philosophical method he rejected, viz., one that proceeds without a prior investigation of reason's competence to answer the questions it is asking. But perhaps Kant was thinking of "dogmatic" in the sense in which he distinguished "dogmata" from "mathemata" in the Critique of ?ure "Reason A 7 3 6 - B 764 and not in the derogratory sense. In the Critique, a dogma is one sort of non-analytic apodeictic proposition, viz., a synthetic proposition that can be "directly derived from concepts." Mathemata are the other sort of synthetic a priori proposition, not found in philosophy, which can be "directly obtained through the construction of concepts." There are no dogmata "in the whole domain of pure reason, in its merely speculative employment," Kant argued (loc. cit.). 34

Introduction

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29

unknowable thing-in-itself acting on an unknowable subject-initself. T h e self that is affected and the object that acts on it must both be viewed as products of a more basic activity of the understanding, an acdvity that we presuppose when we regard our experiences as produced in us either by an independent object or by our own power of thinking. This most basic activity Beck equated with the function of producing the transcendental unity of apperception in Kant's deduction of the categories, and it is this "standpoint" one needs to attain in order to understand Kant's theory. It is a unique act of synthesizing a priori, an act whereby the subject constitutes himself as a conscious thinker. Kant's agreement with Beck is shown most clearly in his willingness to make the activity of synthesis (Zusammensetzung) the basic condition of all cognition. Beck used the phrase "original attribution" {ursprüngliche Beylegung), which Kant at first (and with justification) found unintelligible; Beck's colleague J. H. Tieftrunk spoke of an act of Setzen ("positing") [787]; and in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre the ego "posits" the non-ego in an original Tathandlung. Although each of these men found his own views to be either subtly or dramatically different from those of the others (Beck, for example, tried to convince Kant that he was radically opposed to Fichte), they agreed that Kant's theory of affection must be reconsidered. But Kant himself had certainly already modified his position when he wrote to Beck, as early as January, 1792 [500]: "The content [of a representation] must thus . . . be created [gemacht] by an inner activity . . . that precedes a priori the manner in which the manifold is given." Beck thought that Kant's method of exposition in the Critique was only a concession to the uninitiated reader who had not yet arrived at the "standpoint" of seeing "objects" as the product of that original activity of the understanding. He and Tieftrunk, both of them perhaps reiterating the criticisms of G. E. Schulze, argued that it was inconsistent of Kant to make an unknowable thing-in-itself that which affects us—inconsistent because "affecting" is a causal relation and the concept of cause is supposed to be meaningful only intraphenomenally and because Kant seems to know a great deal about unknowables here, for example, that they are real (another category illegitimately used) and efficacious. Beck's suggested reconstruction of Kant's theory, which would begin with the "standpoint," that is, the original activity of mind that first produces the "I think" expressed in the categories, was, as

30.

• Introduction

has already been pointed out, not at all uncongenial to Kant, and the extent of Beck's influence on Kant may be seen in Kant's Opus Postumum?5 The apostasy of Kant's ablest disciples may give the impression that Kant's final years were spent in friendless isoladon. This was not the case, although Kant was not on very warm terms with his family. His sisters and their husbands were too far removed from him in education and social position; his nieces must have been illiterate (they signed Kant's will with X ' s ) . - N o r was Kant very close to his brother Johann, whom he had not seen since 1758. The love and esteem of his friends and former students, however, continued throughout their lives and his, and the respect of men like Schiller must have been very pleasing to Kant's old age. 36 Kiesewetter kept him supplied with his favorite turnips,37 along with the latest gossip from Berlin. J. Richardson, who published an English translation of Kant's Essays and Treatises, kept him informed on the progress of his philosophy in England, 38 J. H . I. Lehmann sent sausages from Göttingen (along with gossip and Feder's belated apologies to Kant), as did F . Nicolovius, 39 and Herz wrote movingly to his old friend and mentor.40 In 1798 Kant spoke of a work that would fill the last gap in his system, the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to 36

For a discussion of this, sec Herman-J. de Vleeschauwer, The Development of Kantian Thought, translated by A. R. C. Duncan (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1 9 6 2 ) . This book is an altogether invaluable study for an understanding of Kant's relationship to his contemporaries. Kant's Opus Postumum is also discussed at some length in F . Copleston's History of Philosophy, Vol. VI (London: Burns & Oates, Ltd., 1 9 6 0 ) , though Copleston attributes to Fichte the influence I believe to be Beck's. Since Kant had not read Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre and knew it only from a review and from what Johann Shultz told him of it, Copleston's conjecture seems mistaken. 36

Kant's correspondence with Schiller deals with the latter's request that Kant contribute an article to the journal Die Hören. Kant declined. The letters are respectful on both sides. It is not clear whether Kant was aware of Schiller's poetry and dramas. 37 Gourmet readers may be interested in Kiesewetter's advice on how to cook these turnips (November 25, 1798 [ 8 2 7 ] ) . They must be washed in w a r m water, dropped at once into boiling water, and then cooked for no more than fifteen minutes. They must be stored in a dry place. 38 T h e translation was published in two volumes in London, 1 7 9 8 - 9 9 . Richardson sent a letter June 2 1 , 1798 [808] (not included in this collection) along with the first volume of the translation. 39 Friedrich Nicolovius ( 1 7 6 8 - 1 8 3 6 ) had a publishing firm in Königsberg (1790-1818). 40 December 25, 1797 [ 791 ].

Introduction

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31

physics. Until 1801, his seventy-seventh year, he devoted what energy he had to this project. But in April of 1802 he wrote, 41 " M y strength diminishes daily, my muscles vanish, and even though I have never had any actual illness and have none now, it is two years since I have been out of the house. Nevertheless I view all changes that are in store for me with calm." In April, 1803, he celebrated his last (seventy-ninth) birthday with his dinner companions. In October of that year he became ill (after eating his favorite English cheese) but recovered sufficiently to entertain his usual dinner guests later that month. From December until the following February, however, he grew much weaker and his death came on the twelfth of February, "a cessation of life and not a violent act of nature," said his friend and biographer, Wasianski.' 2 41 To the fiance of his brother's daughter, Pastor K. C. Schoen, April 23, i3O2 [892]. 42 Quoted in K. Vorländer, Immanuel Kants Leben (2d ed.; Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1 9 2 1 ) , p. 207.

32.

• Introduction

The

Letters

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, - II -

VOL. x,

pp.

j-16

Honored tutor, I do not hold it against you that you are my rival or that you have enjoyed your new friend [Berens] for weeks during all of which I only saw him for a few scattered hours, like a phantom or even more like a clever scout.1 I shall however bear this grudge against your friend, that he ventured to introduce you yourself into my very own seclusion; and that he not only tempted me to let you see my sensiuvity, wrath, and jealousy but even exposed you to the danger of getting quite close to a man whom the disease of his passions has given an intensity of thinking and of feeling that a healthy person does not possess. This is what I wanted to say to your sweetheart right in the ear when I thanked you for the honor of your first visit. if you are Socrates and your friend wants to be Alcibiades, then for your instruction you need the voice of a genius. And that role is one I was born for; nor can I be suspected of pride in saying this —an actor lays aside his royal mask, no longer walks and speaks on suits, as soon as he leaves the stage—allow me therefore to be called "genius" and to speak to you as a genius out of the clouds, as long as I am writing this letter. But if I am to speak as a genius, I beg that you give me at least the patience and attentiveness with which an illustrious, handsome, clever, and informed public recently heard the farewell address of a mortal concerning the fragments of an urn on which one could with effort decipher the 1 This letter from Hamann to Kant was written shortly after Kant and J. C. Berens ( 1 7 2 9 - 9 2 ) visited Hamann in Königsberg. The point of the visit was to convert Hamann away from the orthodox Chrisdanity he had recently embraced. Before Hamann's trip to London in 1757 and his sudden conversion, he and Berens had both been enamored of deism and world citizenship. In an effort to restore him to what Berens and Kant regarded as sanity, Kant tried to persuade Hamann to translate some articles from the French 'Encyclopedic. As is obvious from this letter, the efforts of Kant and Berens were in vain.

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, 7759

• 35

letters BIBLIOTEK.2 The "project" was to learn to think of beautiful bodies. Only a Socrates can do that, never a count; no legislature will create a genius out of a Watson, through the power of its governing offices and the authority of its election. I write in epic style since you do not yet understand how lyric language must be read. An epic author is a historian of unusual creatures and their still more unusual lives. A lyric author is the historian of the human heart. Self-knowledge is hardest and highest; the easiest and most disgusting, natural history, philosophy, and poetry. It is pleasant and profitable to translate a page of Pope —into the fibers of the brain and of the heart—but vanity and a curse to leaf through a part of the Encyclopedie? I finished the work you proposed to me only last night. The article concerning beauty is a piece of chattering and a summarizing of Hutchinson [jic]. 4 T h e article about art is less harsh ana thus sweeter than the Englishman's discourse concerning nothing but a word. So only one article remained that really deserved translation. It had to do with forced labor.5 Every perceptive reader of my heroic letter will appreciate from experience the effort required to be calm about such people but will also have the sympathy for ail forced laborers that the writer of my article has for them and will look for the amelioration of the abuses that make it impossible for them to be good forced laborers. Since I, however, have no desire to become one and hold no office of that sort on this earth, where I'have to be dependent on the mood of those who are lower than I, this article will find enough other translators who have a calling for that job. A man of the world who knows the art of making visits will always put enterprises in charge of a good superintendent. To return to our dear cousin [Berens]. You cannot love this old man out of inclination; the motive must be vanity or selfish egotism. You should have known him when I loved him. In those days he thought the way you do, most honorable tutor, about 2 The allusion is to the academic farewell address of Matthias Friedrich Watson, professor of poetry in Königsberg, 1756-59. Hamann thought the speech incredible. Evidently it consisted largely of autobiographical anecdotes, together with extracts from a book entitled Critical Outline of a Selected Library [Bibliothek.] for Friends of Philosophy and Belles-Lettres. 3 The famous Encyclopedic ou Dictionnaire Raisonee des Sciences, des Arts et des Metiers ( 1 7 5 1 ) . 4 The article, "Beau," is by Diderot. In its historical introduction, there is a discussion of Francis Hutcheson's aesthetics. 5 N . A. Boulanger's article, "Corvee."

36

•

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, I J 5 9

natural rights; he knew nothing but generous tendencies in himself and in me. You have it, this final contempt is a leftover bit of love for you. Let yourself be warned and let me parrot Sappho: Ah, send me back my wanderer, Ye Nisaean matrons and Nisaean maids, Nor let the lies of his bland tongue deceive you! I think your acquaintance with him is still innocent and that you are merely passing the long summer and August evenings. Could you not see me as a girl, confused and shamed, a girl who has sacrificed her honor to her friend, who entertains his company with her weaknesses and nakedness, of which she has made no secret to him, privately. France, the life of the court, and his present association with a pack of Calvinists, these are responsible for all the trouble. He loves the human race as a Frenchman loves a woman, for his mere personal enjoyment and at the expense of her virtue and honor. In friendship as in love, he casts aside all secrets. But that means that he denies the god of friendship; and when Ovid, his heart's poet, writes to a corrupt friend, he is still tender enough to prefer to her love-making the intimacy of another person. Those kisses are common to you with me, And common to me with you—why does Any third attempt to share those goods? 7 That he thinks differently than he talks, writes differently than he talks, I shall be able to show you more clearly when we have occasion to talk and walk. Yesterday everything was supposed to be open, and in his last little note he wrote me: "I beg you not to make us a laughingstock by misusing in any way what I, as an honest friend, am writing to you—our domestic affairs are none of your business now—we live quietly here, cheerful, human, and Christian." I have lived up to this condition so scrupulously that I have plagued my conscience over innocent words that escaped my lips and that no one could have understood. Now everything is supposed to be public. But I shall keep to what he has written. We are not going to reach an understanding. I am not going to 6 Ovid Heroides, Epis. X V , v. 53-56 (trans, by Grant Showerman; Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1 9 1 4 ) . 7 Ovid Amores 2, 5, 31 f. (trans, by Grant Showerman; Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1 9 1 4 ) .

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, 7759

• 37

put up with having to justify myself. Because I cannot justify myself without damning my judges, and these are the dearest friends I have on earth. If I had to justify myself, I would have to argue: 1) 2) 3) 4)

that my friend [Berens] has a false conception of himself, an equally false conception of all his fellow men, has had and sail has a false conception of me, has wrongly and one-sidedly judged the issue between us as a whole and in its context, 5) has not the slightest conception or feeling as to what he and I have heretofore done and are still doing. Because I know all the principles and motivations of his actions, I can forgi-ve what I know and don't know that he has done and still does, since he, according to his own confession, cannot make head or tail of anything I say or do. This must seem like bragging to you and happens quite naturally in the course of events. I am still too modest, but I can certainly boast with my bleary red eyes against one with cataracts. It would be a simple matter, compared with all my work and effort, to get myself acquitted. But to be condemned to the poison cup while innocent! Acquittal is what all Xantippes and Sophists think of—but not Socrates; for to him it was more a matter of the innocence of his conscience than of its reward, staying alive. So that sort of Apology is out of the question for me. The God I serve, whom scoffers take to be clouds, fog, "vapeurs and Hypochondrie," will not be appeased by means of rams' blood and calves' blood; otherwise I could prove very quickly that your friend's reason and wit, as my own, is a lascivious calf and his noble intentions a ram with horns. What your friend doesn't believe is as little my affair as what I believe is his affair. On this subject we are thus divided, and the talk remains simply a matter of trade. A whole world full of handsome and profound minds, were they nothing but morning stars and Lucifers, could be neither judge nor expert witness here, and such a world is not the public of a lyric poet, who smiles at the applause of his eulogy and remains silent at its faults. Peter the Great was called upon by the gods to have his own people imitate the handsome spirit of other nations in certain petty details. But do we get younger by shaving off our beards? The truth is not found in mere sensuous judgments. A subject of a despotic government, says Montesquieu, mustn't

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, 7759•38

know what is good and evil.8 Let him be afraid, as if his prince were a god who could cast down his body and soul into hell. Were he to have insights, he would be an unhappy subject for his state; if he has any virtue, he is a fool to let it be noticed. A patrician in a Greek republic could not have connections with the Persian court, if he were to avoid being rebuked as a traitor to his fatherland. Are the laws of the vanquished proper for the conqueror? Was the subject repressed by those laws? Do you grant your fellow citizens a similar fate? Abraham is our father—do we work according to Peter's plan? as the ruler of a little free state in Italy learned to babble of "commerce" and "the Public"—do your father's works understand what you say, use your knowledge judiciously, and put your "alas!" in the right place. We can do more harm with truths than with errors, if we use the former absurdly and are able to modify the latter by luck or by habit. That is why many an orthodox soul can ride to the devil, in spite of the truth, and many a heretic gets to heaven, despite excommunication by the ruling church or public. How far a man can be effective in the order of the world is a task for you, a task, however, to which one dare not turn until one understands how the soul may be effective in the system of its little world. Whether "pre-established harmony" is not at least a happier sign of this miracle than "infiuxus physicus" manages to express, you may decide for yourself. Meanwhile I am content to deduce from that, that the Calvinistic church is as little in a position to make an adherent of your friend as is the Lutheran. These impressions are nothing but apples that I toss as Galatea did to tease her lover. I am as little concerned with truth as is your friend; like Socrates, I believe everything that others believe—but I aim to disturb other people in their beliefs. That is what the wise man had to do, because he was surrounded with Sophists and priests whose sound reason and good works existed only in the imagination. There are people who imagine themselves healthy and honorable, just as there are malades imaginaires. If you want to judge me from Mr. B's critique and my writings, that is as unphilosophical a judgment as if one were to survey Luther from head to toe by reading one brochure to the duke of Wolfenbüttel [we]. 8

See Montesquieu, De l'Esprit des Lois, Bk. Ill, chap. 9, and Bk. IV, chap.

3*

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, 7759

• 39

He who trusts another man's reason more than his own ceases to be a man and stands in the front ranks of the herd of mimicking cattle. Even the greatest human genius should seem to us unworthy of imitation. Nature, said Batteux; 9 one mustn't be a Spinozist in matters of fine arts or in those of government. Spinoza led an innocent mode of life, too timid in reflection; had he gone farther, he would have expressed the truth better than he did. He was incautious in whiling away his time and occupied himself too much with spider webs; this taste revealed itself in his thinking, which can only entangle small vermin. Of what use are the archives of all kings and of all centuries, if a few lines out of this great fragment, a few notes out of this chaos, can give us knowledge and power. How happy is the man who can visit daily the archives of him who can guide the hearts of all kings like brooks,10 who does not desire in vain to inspect his marvelous economy, the laws of his kingdom, and so on. A pragmatic author says about this: "The statutes of the Lord are more precious than gold, than much fine gold, sweeter than honey and the dripping honey comb." 1 1 "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." "I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because Thou through Thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me." What do you think of this system? I want to make my neighbors happy. A rich merchant is happy. So that you might become rich —you need insight and moral virtues. In my mimicking style, a sterner logic prevails and a connection more coherent than in the concepts of lively minds. Your ideas are like the playing colors of shot silk, says Pope. At this instant I am a leviathan, the monarch or prime minister of Ocean, on whose breath depends the ebb and flow of the tides. The next instant I see myself as a whale, created by God, as the mightiest poet says, to sport in the sea. I must almost laugh at the choice of a philosopher to try to change my mind. I look upon the finest logical demonstration as a 9 Charles Batteux, Les Beaux Arts Reduits a urt Me me Principe (Paris, 1 7 4 7 ) , P- 9: "The spirit which is father to the arts must imitate nature." 10 Prov. 21:1. II Ps. 1 9 : 1 0 - 1 1 . 12 Ps. 1 1 9 : 72, 99-ioo, 98.

40

•

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, IJ59

sensible girl regards a love letter and upon a Baumgartian explanation as a witty courtesan. I have been imposed upon with dreadful lies, most honored tutor. I wonder whether your reading so many travel books has made you credulous or incredulous. One forgives the original authors, since they do it unaware and, like a comic hero, "speak prose without knowing it." 1 3 Lies are the mother tongue of our reason and wit. One mustn't believe what one sees—let alone what one hears. When two people are in different situations, they must never fight about their sense impressions. A stargazer can tell a person on the fourth story a great deal. The latter must not be so stupid as to claim the other man's eyes are sick. Come on down: then you'll be convinced that you didn't see anything. A man in a deep ditch without water can see stars at bright noon. The man on the surface does not deny the stars—but all he can see is the lord of the day. Because the moon is closer to the earth than the sun is, you tell your moon fairy tales about the glory of God. It is God's glory to conceal a thing; it is the glory of kings to search out a matter. 14 As one knows the tree by its fruits, so I know that I am a prophet from the fate that I share with all witnesses: slander, persecution, contempt. All at once, my dear tutor!, I want to deprive you of the hope of bargaining with me about certain matters that I can judge better than you. I have more data, I base myself on facts, and I know my authors not out of journals but by carefully and repeatedly wallowing in them; I have not read extracts but the Acts themselves, wherein the "interests" of the king as well as that of the country are discussed. Every animal has its characteristic gait in its thinking and writing. One proceeds in sentences and pages like a grasshopper; the other, in a cohesive connection like a slow worm in its track for the sake of security, which his construction may need. The one straight, the other crooked. According to Hogarth's system, the snake line is the basis of all beautiful painting, as I read in the vignette on the title page. 15 The Attic philosopher, Hume, needs faith if he is to eat an egg 13

Monsieur Jourdain. in Moliere's Le Bourgeois

14

Prov. 2 5 : 2 . William Hogarth's The Analysis

Gentilhomme,

Act II, scene

6. 15

of Beauty

(London,

1753).

From J. G. Hamann, July 27, 7759

•

41

and drink a glass of water. 13 He says: Moses, the law of reason, to which the philosopher appeals, condemns him. Reason is not given to you to make you wise but to make you aware of your folly and ignorance, just as the Mosaic law was given to the Jews, not to make them righteous, but rather to make their sins more sinful to them. 17 If he needs faith for food and drink, why does he deny faith when he judges of matters that are higher than sensuous eating and drinking. T o explain something by means of custom—custom is a composite thing consisting of monads. Custom is called "second nature," and its phenomena are just as perplexing as nature itself, which it imitates. If Hume were only sincere, consistent with himself . All his errors aside, he is like Saul among the prophets.13 I only want to quote one passage that will prove that one can preach the truth in jest, and without awareness or desire, even if one is the greatest doubter and, like the serpent, 13 wants to doubt even what God said. Here it is: "The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its veracity. And whoever is moved by Faith to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience . . ." ["custom" and "experience" italicized by Hamann]. 20 Beg your friend that it becomes him least to laugh at the eyeglasses of my aesthetic imagination, for I must arm the naked eyes of my reason with those same glasses. A tender lover never worries about his expenses, when an affair breaks up. So if perhaps, according to the new "right of nature" of old people, the question were one of money, tell him that I have nothing and must myself live on my father's generosity; that nevertheless everything belongs to him that God may want to give me—which, however, I do not follow, because I might then lose the blessing of the fourth commandment. If I should die, I want to 13

See Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Bk. I, Pt. Ill, sees, vi and vii. Rom. 7 : 7 - 3 . 13 1 Sam. 1 0 : 1 1 ; 19:24. 19 Gen. 3 : 1 - 5 . 20 Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sec. X, concluding paragraph. 17

42

• From J. G. Hamann, July 27, IJ59

bequeath my corpse to him, which he can then, like the Egyptians, treat as a forfeit, as is supposedly written in the pleasant Happelio of Greece, Herodotus. 21 The lyre for lyric poetry is the tireli of the lark. If only I could sing like a nighdngale sings. So there will at least have to be art critics among the birds, who always sing, and boast of their incessant diligence. You know, most honored tutor, that genii have wings and that they sound just like the applause of the multitude. If one is permitted to mock God with grace and strength, why shouldn't one be able to amuse oneself with idols? Mother Lyse sings: Make mockery of idols false. 22 A philosopher however looks at poets, lovers, and visionaries as a man looks at a monkey, with pleasure and pity. As soon as men can understand one another, they can work. He who confused the languages—who punished the exemplars of pride out of love and also for the sake of political ends, for the good of the populace as a friend of humanity—joined them together again on the day that they slandered men with tongues of fire, as if intoxicated by sweet wine. 23 The truth did not want highway robbers to get too close to her; she wore dress upon dress, so that they had misgivings about ever finding her body. How terrified they were when they had their wish and saw the truth, the terrible ghost, before them. I shall come and pick up this letter in person at the earliest possible date.

From J. H. Lambert, November 13, - 33 -

VOL. X, pp.

51-54

Dear sir: I believe that the similarity of our ways of thinking will excuse this letter, its frankness, and the omission of customary 21 The allusion is to Herodotus' story concerning the treasure of Rhampsinitos. See his History, Bk. II, chap. 1 2 1 . 22 From the eighth stanza of the song, "Sei Lob und Ehr' dem Höchsten Gut," by the famous Johann Schütz (1640-90). 23 Gen. 1 1 : 7 - 9 .

From J. H. Lambert, November 13,1765

•

43

circumlocutions. I need no such artificial mannerisms, since Professor and Pastor Reccard's 1 trip to Königsberg gives me such a fine opportunity to express to you the pleasure I feel at our agreement on so many new thoughts and investigations. You may already have learned from the Reverend Dr. Reccard, dear sir, that he lives for the sake of astronomy, and finds his pleasure in the depths of the firmament. I need not recommend him further. A year ago Professor Suizer 3 showed me your "Only Possible Proof of the Existence of God." I found in it my own thoughts and even the phrases I would choose to express them, and I decided at once that if you were to see my Organon 3 you too would find your own likeness in most of my book. Since then, I have worked out my Architectonic* and the book has been ready for the printer for a year now. But now I see, dear sir, that you are going to publish a Proper Method for Metaphysics this coming Easter. What could be more natural than my desire to see whether what I have done is in accord with the method you propose? I have no doubts as to the correctness of the method. The only difference will be that I do not count under "architectonic" all the things heretofore treated in metaphysics and that, on the other hand, a complete metaphysics must include more than has previously been the case. I take "architectonic" to include all the simple and primary parts of human knowledge and not only the principia, which are principles [Gründe] derived from the farm of knowledge, but also the axiomata and postulata. Axiomata must be derived from the matter of knowledge and actually only appear in simple concepts, thinkable in themselves and not self-contradictory, whereas postulata state the universal and necessary possibilities of the synthesis [Zusammensetzung] and uniting [Verbin1 Gotthilf Christian Reccard ( 1 7 3 5 - 9 8 ) came to Königsberg as professor of theology in 1765. •Johann Georg Suizer ( 1 7 2 0 - 7 9 ) , aesthetician, member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and one of the men to whom Kant rent his inaugural dissertation for review. His letter to Kant of December 8, 1770 [62], contains some interesting remarks on space and time, but for some reason Kant did not take his criticisms as seriously as he did those of Lambert and Mendelssohn. 3 Neues Organon oder Gedanken über die Erforschung und Bezeichnung des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung vom Irrthum und Schein ("New Organon, or Thoughts on the Discovery and Designation of Truth and its Differentiation from Error and Appearance") (Leipzig, 1764). 4 Anlage zur Architectonic oder Theorie des Einfachen und des Ersten in der philosophischen und mathematischen Erkenntr.iss ("Oudine of Architectonic, or Theory of the Simple and Primary Elements of Philosophical and Mathematical Knowledge") (Riga, 1 7 7 1 ) .

44

•

From /. H. Lambert, November /J, 7765

dung] of the simple concepts. We do not get to any material knowledge from the form alone; we shall remain in the realm of the ideal, stuck in mere nomenclature, if we do not look out for what is primary and thinkable in itself, the matter or objective stuff of knowledge. If the Architectonic were a novel, I think it would already have found numerous publishers, so true is it that booksellers and readers corrupt each other, both of them wanting to avoid any thorough thinking. Hereabouts one philosophizes exclusively about so-called belles-lettres. Poets, painters, and musicians find the vocabulary of their own arts too lowly, and each one therefore borrows the ardstic terms of the other. The poet speaks of nothing but coloration, the mixing of hues, brush strokes, composition and design, style, shade, and so on. The musician speaks of coloration, expression, wording, the fiery and witty "ideas" expressed by the notes, the "pedantry" of the fugue, and so on. He has, just like the painter, a "style" in which he can sound sublime, moderate, middle-class, heroic, crawling, and so on. It is such metaphors, which no one understands or explains, that give these arts their refined and elevated character; and just for that reason one acquires a learned and "sublime" appearance when one uses them. Since no one has yet troubled to sift out what is intelligible in such expressions and restate it in its proper terms, one can use them all the more boldly. Explicadon cannot be carried out to the point where colors become comprehensible to the blind or sounds to the deaf. Yet this is evidently the intention of such metaphors. But I come back to the Architectonic. I see from various indications that Mr. Kanter 5 is a man who will also publish philosophy and larger works, and for this reason I wanted to give him a number of things to print, though at the moment I have no other manuscript. Whether it would be advantageous or all the same, because of the costs, to have it printed in Leipzig would depend on the difference in prices and the freight charges. If it could be done in Leipzig, there are various other reasons why that would be best. In my ignorance I take the liberty of forwarding the enclosed sheet, in case Mr. Kanter might be inclined to publish the work and could deliver it by Easter. The honorarium would be around two hundred thalers and is the more moderate because the work will necessarily create a stir. I can tell you with confidence, dear sir, that your ideas about the 3

Johann Jakob Kanter, ( 1 7 3 8 - 8 6 ) , bookdeaier and publisher in Königsberg.

From J. H. Lambert, November 13,1765

• 45

origin of the world, which you mention in the preface 3 to Only Possible Proof . . . were not known to mc before. What I said on page 149 of the Cosmological Letters 7 dates from 1749. Right after supper I went to my room, contrary to my habit then, and from my window I looked at the starry sky, especially the Milky Way. I wrote down on a quarto sheet the idea that occurred to me then, that the Milky Way could be viewed as an ecliptic of the fixed stars, and it was this note I had before me when I wrote the Letters in 1760. In 1761 I heard in Nürnberg that an Englishman had had similar thoughts a few years before,3 which he had had printed in letters to another Englishman, but that these ideas were quite undeveloped and the translation that someone in Nürnberg had begun had not been completed. I answered that the Cosmological Letters would not arouse interest until perhaps some future astronomer discovers something in the sky that cannot be explained in any other way. And when the system will have been verified a posteriori, then the lovers of Greek literature will labor without rest until they can prove that the whole system was already known to Philolaus or Anaximander or some Greek wise man or other and that it has only been rediscovered and polished up in more recent times. For these people can find everything among the ancients, as soon as you tell them what to look for. I am more surprised, however, that Newton did not stumble on the idea, since he did know of the difficulty about the fixed stars. I have a number of wishes, dear sir. One of them I shall not express, since I don't know whether and how far the present constitution of things will let it be so. However, I can say that the wish is not mine alone. The other thing is that it would be very 3 See Kant's Werk?, II, 68 f., for the preface to Kant's Only Possible Proof of the Existence of God, in which a footnote refers to his earlier General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels) and to Lambert's agreement with ideas on the formation of the world, the Milky Way, and the fixed stars, as expressed in Lambert's Cosmological Letters of 1 7 6 1 . Kant's General Natural History was published in 1755, but the publisher went bankrupt just as the book came out. As a result, Kant's theories, specifically the nebular hypothesis, were not well known to Lambert and other physicists. Laplace, forty-one years later, does not mention Kant's book. 7 Cosmological Letters on the Establishment of the Universe (Cosmologische Briefe über die Einrichtung des Weltbauses [Augsburg, 1 7 6 1 ] ) . 3 An Original Theory and New Hypothesis of the Universe, by Thomas Wright of Durham ( 1 7 5 0 ) . Kant credits this work with stimulating his own composition of the General Natural History. Kant knew of Wright's ideas from a 1 7 5 1 review of his book in a Hamburg newspaper.

46

•

From J. H. Lambert, November /j, 7765

pleasant, if time and your affairs allow it, to exchange letters with you. Cosmology, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, belles-lettres, and their principles, and so on, in short, every quest of new ideas, and every occasion that I might be of service to you. We have heretofore hit upon almost the same investigations without knowing it. Would we not make better progress by advising one another in advance? H o w easily one reaches agreement in the consequences when one is agreed in the starting points, and how emphatic one can then be. Wolf has brought approximately half of the method of mathematics into philosophy. The other half remains to be done, so we know what to strive for. I am honored to be, with sincere respect, dear sir, J . H . LAMBERT Professor and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences

,

Berlin

To J. H. Lambert, December 31, - 34 -

VOL. X, pp.

1765

54-57

Dear sir: Nothing could have been more welcome and pleasant for me than to receive the letter with which you have honored me; for, in all sincerity, I hold you to be the greatest genius in Germany, a man capable of important and enduring contributions to the investigations on which I too am working. I beg you also not to think me negligent for my delay in answering. Mr. Kanter, whom I informed of your proposal, asked me to postpone my letter until he might indicate his final decision to you in a letter of his own. H e recognizes very well the significance of an association with such a distinguished writer as you, and ,he is willing enough to undertake the publication. But he would like to postpone it, since he does not have enough time before the Easter book fair and he is overwhelmed with other commitments. He has gone into partnership with his former employee, Mr. Hartknoch, who managed his affairs in Riga till now, and he has assured me that he

To ]. H. Lambert, December 31,1765

' 47

will send you his explanation of the matter just mendoned right away.

It is no small pleasure for me thac you have noticed the fortunate agreement of our methods, an agreement that I have often observed in your writings. It has served to increase my confidence, since it is a logical confirmation that shows that our methods satisfy the touchstone of universal human reason. I value gready your invitation to share our plans with each other, and since I feel highly honored by this proposal I shall not fail to make use of it. For unless I deceive myself I think I have finally reached some conclusions I can trust. But the talent one sees in you, dear sir, combining an exceptional acuteness for details with a breadth of vision of the whole, is universally admitted, so that your willingness to unite your powers with my small endeavors allows me to hope for important instruction, for myself and perhaps for the world as well. For a number of years I have carried on my philosophical reflections on every earthly subject, and after many capsizings, on which occasions I always looked for the source of my error or tried to get some insight into the nature of my blunder, I have finally reached the point where I feel secure of the method that has to be followed if one wants to escape that delusion of knowledge that has us constantly expecting to reach a conclusion, yet just as constantly makes us retrace our steps, a delusion from which the devastating disunity among supposed philosophers also arises. For we lack a common standard with which to procure agreement from them. Now, whatever the nature of the investigation before me, I always look to see what it is I have to know in order to solve a particular problem, and what degree of knowledge is possible for a given question, so that the judgment I make is often more limited but also more definite and secure than is customary in philosophy. What I am working on is mainly a book on the proper method of metaphysics (and thereby also the proper method for the whole of philosophy). Apropos, I must tell you, dear sir, that Mr. Kanter, in true bookseller's fashion, did not hesitate to announce the title in the Leipzig catalog when he heard from me that I might have a work with that title ready for the next Easter fair. I have, however, departed so widely from my original plan that I now want to postpone this book a little while, for I regard it as the culmination of my whole project. My problem is this: I noticed in my work that, though I had plenty of examples of erroneous judgments to

48

•

To /. H. Lambert, December j/, 7765

illustrate my theses concerning mistaken procedures, I did not have examples to show in concreto what the proper procedure should be. Therefore, in order to avoid the accusation that I am merely hatching new philosophical schemes, I must first publish a few littie essays, the contents of which I have already worked out. The first of these will be the "Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Philosophy" and the "Metaphysical Foundations of Practical Philosophy." 1 With the publication of these essays, the main work will not have to be burdened excessively with detailed and yet inadequate examples. The moment for ending my letter has arrived. I shall in the future have the honor of presenting you, dear sir, with parts of my project, and I shall request your very respected judgment. You complain with reason, dear sir, of the eternal trifling of punsters and the wearying chatter of today's reputed writers, with whom the only evidence of taste is that they talk about taste. I think, though, that this is the euthanasia of false philosophy, that it is perishing amid these foolish pranks, and it would be far worse to have it carried to the grave ceremoniously, with serious but dishonest hair-splitting. Before true philosophy can come to life, the old one must destroy itself; and just as putrefaction signifies the total dissolution that always precedes the start of a new creation, so the current crisis in learning magnifies my hopes that the great, long-awaited revolution in the sciences is not too far off. For there is no shortage of good minds. Professor Reccard, who pleased me with his kind visit and also with your honored letter, is well liked here and universally respected as he deserves to be, though certainly there are few people able to appreciate his full worth. He sends his regards, and I am, with the greatest respect, dear sir, Your most devoted servant, I. KANT

P.S. As I had finished this letter, Mr. Kanter sent over the letter he owes you, which I am enclosing. 1 Kant's Metaphysiche Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft did not in fact appear unti! twenty years later, 1786. No "metaphysical foundations of practical philosophy" was ever published by Kant. See L . W . Beck's Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, i960), chap, i, for a full account of Kant's plans, and changes of plans, for a book on the foundations of ethics.

From

J. H. Lambert,N o v e m b e r1 3 , 1 7 6 5• 49

From f . H. Lambert, February - 37 -

IJ66

VOL. X, Pp. 62-6j

Dear sir, I am in every way obliged to you for your most treasured letter of December 3 1 and should like especially to render my sincerest thanks for your efforts in connection with Mr. Kanter. If it suits him I should be very pleased to see him here at Easter and to make the necessary appointments with him. I shall also have various matters to discuss with him in connection with the calender revision that I have undertaken for the Academy. Might I beg you, sir, to inform Mr. Kanter of ail this when you have time. I have nothing else to say in answer to his letter. But do think up ways in which, perhaps because of my location [in Berlin], I can be of service to you, so that I shall not remain your debtor. There is no denying it: whenever a science needs methodical reconstruction and cleansing, it is always metaphysics. The universal, which is supposed to reign in that science, leads us to suppose ourselves omniscient, and thus we venture beyond the limits of possible human knowledge. I think this shows that if we want to avoid omissions, premature inferences, and circular reasoning, we had better work piecemeal, demanding to know at every step only what is capable of being known. I think it has been an unrecognized but perennial error in philosophy to force the facts and, instead of leaving anything unexplained, to load up with conjectures, thus actually delaying the discovery of the truth. The method that your writings exhibit, sir, is undeniably the only method that one can use with security and progress. I see it approximately as follows (and this is also how I set it forth in the last part of my Dianoiologie [Neues Organon I, 386-450]). . . . [Lambert's account of his method is lengthy and not very interesting. He warns against hasty generalization and the overlooking of ambiguities and urges that philosophical investigations begin with "simple" rather than "complex" things.] But I wanted to make some more general remarks. The first concerns the question whether or to what extent knowing the

50 • From J. H. Lambert, February 3,1766

form of knowledge leads to knowing the matter. This question is important for several reasons. First, our knowledge of the form, as in logic, is as incontestable and right as is geometry. Second, only that part of metaphysics that deals with form has remained undisputed, whereas strife and hypotheses have arisen when material knowledge is at issue. Third, the basis of material knowledge has not, in fact, been adequately shown. Wolf assumed nominal definitions and, without noticing it, shoved aside or concealed all difficulties in them. Fourth, even if formal knowledge does not absolutely determine any material knowledge, it nevertheless determines the ordering of the latter, and to that extent we ought to be able to infer from formal knowledge what would and what would not serve as a possible beginning. Fifth, a knowledge of form can also help us to determine what belongs together and what must be put into distinct categories, and so on. In thinking over these relationships of form and matter, I arrived at the following propositions, which I only want to list here. 1. Form gives us principles, whereas matter gives us axioms and postulates. 2. Formal knowledge must begin with simple concepts, which cannot be internally self-contradictory, since they are simple in themselves and conceivable and independent in themselves. 3. Axioms and postulates actually contain only simple concepts. For synthesized concepts [zusammengesetze Begriffe] are not conceivable a priori in themselves. The possibility of synthesizing must first of all be derived from the principles [ Grundsätzen ] and postulates. 4. Either no synthesized concepts are conceivable or the possibility of synthesizing must already be conceivable in the simple concepts. 5. The simple concepts are individual concepts. For genera and species contain the fundamenta divisionum et subdivisionum within them and, just for that reason, are more highly synthesized the more abstract and universal they are. The concept of "thing," ens, is of all concepts the most synthesized. 6. According to the Leibnizian analysis, which proceeds by way of abstraction and analogies, one arrives at more highly synthesized concepts the more one abstracts, and for the most part, at nominal relational concepts that concern the form more than the matter.

59•From J. H. Lambert, February 3 , 1 7 6 6

7- On the other hand, since form consists of nothing but relational concepts, it can give an account of nothing but simple relational concepts. 8. Accordingly, the really objectively simple concepts must be found by a direct intuition [ Anschauen ] of them, that is, we must, in good anatomical fashion, assemble all the concepts and let each one pass through inspection, in order to see whether, when we ignore all the relations of a given concept to other concepts, there are several concepts included in it or whether it is indeed simple [einförmig]. 9. Simple concepts are like space and time, that is to say, totally different from one another, easily recognizable, easy to name, and practically impossible to confuse, if we abstract from their degrees and concentrate only on their kinds [quale]. And thus I believe that not a single one of those concepts remains unnamed in cur language. With these propositions in mind I have no hesitation in saying that Locke was on the right track when he sought the simple elements in our knowledge. But we need to eliminate the distortions caused by linguistic usage. For example, there is an undeniably individual, simple something in the concept of extension— something that is not found in any other concept. There is something simple in the concepts of duration, existence, movement, unity, solidity, and so on, something belonging uniquely to each of these concepts, that can readily be distinguished in thought from the many relational concepts that may accompany them. Axioms and postulates that lay the groundwork for scientific knowledge are also indicated by these simples and are all of the same type as Euclid's. The other remarks I wanted to make concern the comparison of philosophical and mathematical knowledge. I realized that where mathematicians have succeeded in opening up a new field that philosophers previously thought they had entirely completed, the mathematicians not only had to reverse everything the philosophers had done but also had to reconstruct everything on simple foundations, so much so that philosophy was entirely useless and contemptible to them. The single condition that only homogeneous elements can be added implies that all philosophical propositions whose predicates do not apply uniformly to their subjects arc rejected by the mathematician. And there are entirely too many such propositions in philosophy: A watch is called "gold" when

52

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From J. H. Lambert, February 3,

IJ66

even the casing is hardly made of gold. Euclid does not derive his elements from either the definition of space or that of geometry but begins instead with lines, angles, and so on, the simple elements in the dimensions of space. In mechanics, we make little use of the definition of motion; rather, we immediatly consider what accompanies motion, viz., a body, the direction, velocity, time, force, and space, and these elements are compared with one another in order to discover principles. I have been led to the conclusion that as long as a philosopher does not carry his analysis of measurable objects to the point where the mathematician can find unities, measures, and dimensions he must surely still be hanging on to some confusion, or at least the predicates of his propositions do not apply uniformly to the subjects. I await impatiently the publication of both your "First Principles of Natural Philosophy and of Practical Philosophy" and I agree entirely that a genuine method commends itself most effectively when displayed in actual examples, since one can then illustrate it with individual cases, whereas it might well be too abstract when expressed logically. But once the examples are there, logical remarks about them become highly serviceable. Examples perform the same job that figures do in geometry, for the latter, too, are actually examples or special cases. I close now and want to assure you that our continued correspondence would be exceptionally pleasing to me. I remain most eagerly at your service, sir, Your most devoted servant, J. H .

LAMBERT

Berlin At the corner of Cronenstrasse and Schinkenbrücke in the Bethgenschen house

53•From J. H. Lambert, February 3,1766

To Moses Mendelssohn, April 8, ij66 - 39 -

VOL. x, pp. 69-73

Dear sir, For your kind efforts in forwarding the writings I sent you, I again send my sincerest thanks and my readiness to reciprocate in any way that I might be of service.1 The unfavorable impression you express concerning the tone of my little book proves to me that you have formed a good opinion of the sincerity of my character, and your very reluctance to see that character ambiguously expressed is both precious and pleasing to me. In fact, you shall never have cause to change this opinion. For though there may be flaws that even the most steadfast determination cannot eradicate completely, I shall certainly never become a fickle or fraudulent person, after having devoted the largest part of my life to studying how to despise those things that tend to corrupt one's character. Losing the self-respect that stems from a sense of honesty would therefore be the greatest evil that could, but most certainly shall not, befall me. Although I am absolutely convinced of many things that I shall never have the courage to say, I shall never say anything I do not believe. I don't know whether, in reading this rather untidily completed book, you noticed certain indications of my reluctance to write it. For I saw that my prying inquiry into Swedenborg's "visions" would make a great stir among people who knew him personally 1

T h e letter is a reply to Mendelssohn's letter, not extant, of some time between February 7 and April 8. On the former date, Kant replied to another letter of Mendelssohn's (also not extant). He expressed his pleasure at the prospect of a correspondence with Mendelssohn and asked him to forward some copies of Kant's Dreams of a Ghost-Seer Explained by Dreams oj Metaphysics (Träume eines Geistersehers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysic^ [ 1 7 6 6 ] ) to various gentlemen (including Lambert). Kant referred to the book as einige Träumerey ("some reveries") and added: "It is, as it were, a casual piece, containing not so much a working out of these questions as a hasty sketch of the way they should be decided." He asked for Mendelssohn's opinion. As is evident from Kant's reply, the opinion was not what Kant had hoped. Mendelssohn was offended by what he took to be the tone of Kant's essay, "between jest and earnest."

54

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To Moses Mendelssohn, April

8,

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or from his letters and published works and that I would never be at peace from their incessant questions until I had got rid of the alleged cognitions mentioned in all these anecdotes. It was in fact difficult for me to devise the right style with which to clothe my thoughts, so as not to expose myself to derision. It seemed to me wisest to forestall other people's mockery by first of all mocking myself; and this procedure was actually quite honest, since my mind is really in a state of conflict on this matter. As regards the spirit reports, I cannot help but be charmed by stories of this kind; but as regards the rational bases of such reports, I cannot rid myself of one or two suspicions of their correctness— leaving aside the absurdities, fancies, and unintelligible notions that undermine their value. As to my expressed opinion of the value of metaphysics in general, perhaps here and again my words were not sufficiently careful and qualified. But I cannot conceal my repugnance, and even a certain hatred, toward the inflated arrogance of whole volumes full of what are passed off nowadays as insights; for I am fully convinced that the path that has been selected is completely wrong, that the methods now in vogue must infinitely increase the amount of folly and error in the world, and that even the total extermination of all these chimerical insights would be less harmful than the dream science itself, with its confounded contagion. I am far from regarding metaphysics itself, objectively considered, to be trivial or dispensable; in fact I have been convinced for some time now that I understand its nature and its proper place in human knowledge and that the true and lasting welfare of the human race depends on it—an appraisal that would seem fantastic and audacious to anyone but you. It befits brilliant men such as you to create a new epoch in this science, to begin completely afresh, to draw up the plans for this heretofore haphazardly constructed discipline with a master's hand. As for the stock of knowledge currently available, which is now publicly up for sale, I think it best to pull off its dogmatic dress and treat its pretended insights skeptically. My feeling is not the result of frivolous inconstancy but of an extensive investigation. Admittedly, my suggested treatment will serve a merely negative purpose, the avoidance of stupidity [stultitia caruisse], but it will prepare the way for a positive one. Although the innocence of a healthy but uninstructed understanding requires only an organon in order to arrive at insight, a propaedeutic [catarcticon ] is needed to get rid of the

To Moses Mendelssohn,

April 8, IJ66

• 55

pseudo insight of a spoiled head. If I may be permitted to mention something of my own efforts, I think I have reached some important insights in this discipline since I last published anything on questions of this sort, insights that will establish the proper procedure for metaphysics. My notions are not merely general ones but provide a specific criterion. T o the extent that my other distractions permit, I am gradually preparing to submit these ideas to public scrutiny, but principally to yours; for I flatter myself that if you could be persuaded to collaborate with me (and I include in this your noticing my errors) the development of the sciences might be significantly encouraged. It suffices for my not inconsiderable pleasure that my superficial little essay will have the good fortune to entice "Basic Reflections" 2 from you on this point, and I regard it as useful enough if it occasions deeper investigations in others. I am sure that the main point of all these considerations will not escape you, though I could have made it more clear if I had not had the paper printed one page at a time. I could not always foresee what would lead to a clearer understanding of later pages; moreover, certain explanations had to be left out, because they would have occurred in the wrong place. In my opinion, everything depends on our seeking out the data of the problem, how is the soul present in the world, both in material and in non-material things. In other words, we need to discover the nature of that power of external agency, and the nature of that receptivity or capacity of being affected by an external agency, of which the union of a soul with a human body is only a special case. Since we have no experience through which we can get to know such a subject in its various relationships (and experience is the only thing that can disclose the subject's external power or capacity), and since the harmony of the soul with the body discloses only the counterrelationship of the inner condition (thinking or willing) of the soul to the outer condition of the material body (not a relation of one external activity to another external activity) and consequently is not at all capable of solving the problem, the upshot of all this is that one is led to ask whether it is intrinsically possible to determine these powers of spiritual substances by means of a priori rational judgments. This investigation resolves itself into another, namely, whether one can by means of rational inferences discover a primitive power, that is, the - A reference to Mendelssohn's Phatdon ( 1 7 6 7 ) . In the second dialogue, Mendelssohn argues that a material thing cannot think.

To Moses Mendelssohn, April 8,

IJ66•56

primary, fundamental relationship of cause to effect. And since I am certain that this is impossible, it follows that, if these powers are not given in experience, they can only be invented. But this invention, an heuristic fiction or hypothesis, can never even be proved to be possible, and it is a mere delusion to argue from the mere fact of its conceivability (which has its plausibility only because no impossibility can be derived from the concept either). Such a delusion is Swedenborg's reverie [Träumerei], though I myself would try to defend it if someone were to argue it impossible. My analogy between a spiritual substance's actual moral influx and the force of universal gravitation is not intended seriously; but it is an example of how far one can go in philosophical fabrications, completely unhindered, when there are no data, and it illustrates how important it is, in such exercises, first to decide what is required for a solution of the problem and whether the necessary data for a solution may be lacking. If, for the time being, we put aside arguments based on propriety or on the divine purposes and ask whether it is ever possible to attain such knowledge of the nature of the soul from our experience-—a knowledge sufficient to inform us of the manner in which the soul is present in the universe, in relation both to matter and to beings of its own sort—we shall then see whether birth (in the metaphysical sense), life, and death are matters we can ever hope to understand by means of reason. Here we must decide whether there really are not limitations established by the bounds of our reason, or rather, the bounds of the experience that contains the data for our reason. But I shall stop now and commend myself to your friendship. I beg also that you convey to Professor Sultzer my particular respect and the desire to hear from him. I am, most respectfully, Your most devoted servant, I.

KANT

Königsberg

To Moses Mendelssohn, August 1 6 , 1 7 8 3 • 57

To J. H. Lambert, September 2, - 57 -

ijjo

VOL. x, pp. 96-99

Noble sir, Honored professor, I am taking advantage of the opportunity I have of sending you my [inaugural] dissertation by way of the respondent of that work, a capable Jewish student of mine. At the same time, I should like to destroy an unpleasant misunderstanding caused by my protracted delay in answering your valued letter. The reason was none other than the striking importance of what I gleaned from that letter, and this occasioned the long postponement of a suitable answer. Since I had spent much time investigating the science [metaphysics] on which you focused your attention there, for I was attempting to discover the nature and if possible the evident and immutable laws of that science, it could not have pleased me more that a man of such discriminating acuteness and universality of insight, with whose method of thinking I had often been in agreement, should offer his services tor a united testing and pursuit of the pian for the secure construction of this science. I could not persuade myself to send you anything less than a clear summary of how I view this science and a definite idea of the proper method for it. The carrying out of this intention entangled me in investigations that were new to me and, what with my exhausting academic work, necessitated one postponement after another. For perhaps a year now, I believe I have arrived at a position that, I flatter myself, I shall never have to change, even though extensions will be needed, a position from which all sorts of metaphysical questions can be examined according to wholly certain and easy criteria. The extent to which these questions can or cannot be resolved will be decidable with certainty. I could summarize this whole science, as far as its nature, the sources of its judgments, and the method with which one can progress in it are concerned; and this summary could be made in a rather small space, namely, in a few letters, to be submitted to your thorough and knowledgeable judgment. It is that judgment for

58 •

To }. H. Lambert, September 2, 1770

which I beg here, anticipating the most excellent results from your criticism. But since in a project of such importance a little expenditure of time is no loss at all, if one can thereby produce something complete and lasting, I must beg you again to believe my good intentions to be unaltered but again to grant me more time to carry them out. In order to recover from a lengthy indisposition that has bothered me all summer, and at the same time to keep busy during odd hours, I have resolved this winter to put in order and complete my investigations of pure moral philosophy, in which no empirical principles are to be found, the "Metaphysics of Morals." It will in many respects pave the way for the most important views involved in the reconstruction of metaphysics and seems to be just as necessary in view of the current state of the practical sciences, whose principles are so poorly defined. After I have completed this work I shall make use of the permission you gave me, to present you with my essays in metaphysics, as far as I have come with them. I assure you that I shall take no proposition as valid which does not seem to you completely warranted. For unless this agreement can be won, the objective will not have been reached, viz., to ground this science on indubitable, wholly incontestable rules. For the present it would please and instruct me to have your judgment of some of the main points in my dissertation, since I intend to add a few pages to it before the publisher presents it at the coming book fair. I want both to correct the errors caused by hasty completion and to make my meaning more determinate. The first and fourth sections can be scanned without careful consideration; but in the second, third, and fifth, though my indisposition prevented me from working them out to my satisfaction, there seems to me to be material deserving more careful and extensive exposition. The most universal laws of sensibility play an unjustifiably large role in metaphysics, where, after all, it is merely concepts and principles (Grundsätze) of pure reason that are at issue. A quite special, though purely negative science, general phenomenology (phaenomologia generalis), seems to me to be presupposed by metaphysics. In it the principles of sensibility, their validity and their limitations, would be determined, so that these principles could not be confusedly applied to objects of pure reason, as has heretofore almost always happened. For space and time, and the axioms for considering all things under these conditions, are, with respect to empirical knowledge and all objects of sense, very real; they are actually the conditions of all appearances

To /. H. Lambert, September 2,

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• 59

and of ail empirical judgments. But extremely mistaken conclusions emerge if we apply the basic concepts of sensibility to something that is not at ail an object of sense, that is, something thought through a universal or a pure concept of the understanding as a thing or substance in general, and so on. It seems to me, too (and perhaps I shall be fortunate enough to win your agreement here by means of my very inadequate essay), that such a propaedeutic discipline, which would preserve metaphysics proper from any admixture of the sensible, could be made usefully explicit and evident without great strain. I beg your future friendship and kind interest in my modest scientific efforts. I hope I may be permitted to commend to you Mr. Marcus Herz, who is delivering this letter and who would like your help with his studies. He is a young man of excellent character, industrious and capable, who adheres to and profits from every piece of good advice. I am, most respectfully, Your most devoted servant, I. KANT

Königsberg

From /. H. Lambert, October -61 -

VOL. X, pp.

IJJO

103-10

Dear sir, Your letter and also your dissertation concerning the sensible and intellectual world gave me great pleasure, especially because I regard the latter as a sample of how metaphysics and ethics could be improved. I hope very much that your new position may occasion more of such essays, since you have not decided to publish it separately. You remind me of my suggestion of five years ago, of a possible future collaboration. I wrote to Mr. Holland 1 about it at that time, and would have written to some other scholars, too, had not the book catalogs shown me that belles-lettres are displacing everything 1

60

Georg Jonathan Kolland

•

( 1 7 4 2 - 8 4 ) , mathematician and philosopher.

From J. H. Lambert, October 13,

IJJO

else. I think that the fad is passing, however, and that people are ready to take up the serious disciplines once more. I have already heard from some people who never read anything but poems, novels, and literary things at the universities that, when they had to get down to business, they found themselves in an entirely new country and had to start their studies all over again. These people are in a position to know what needs to be done at the universities. In the meantime I planned to write some little treatises myself, to invite the collaboration of some scholars with similar views, and thus to create a private society where all those things that tend to ruin public learned societies would be avoided. The actual members would have been a small number of selected philosophers, who would, however, have had to be at home in physics and mathematics as well, since in my view an authentic metaphysician is like a man who lacks one of his senses, as the blind lack sight. . . . The members would have expressed their opinions on difficult matters in the form of questions, or in such a manner that room would have been left for rejoinders and objections. . . . But I turn now to your excellent dissertation, since you particularly wanted to have my thoughts about it. If I have correctly understood the matter, certain propositions are basic, and these are, briefly, as follows: The first main thesis is that human knowledge, by virtue of being knowledge and by virtue of having its own form, is divided in accordance with the old phaenomenon and noumenon distinction and, accordingly, arises out of two entirely different and, so to speak, heterogeneous sources, so that what stems from the one source can never be derived from the other. Knowledge that comes from the senses thus is and remains sensible, just as knowledge that comes from the understanding remains peculiar to the understanding. My thoughts on this proposition have to do mainly with the question of universality, namely, to what extent these two ways of knowing are so completely separated that they never come together. If this is to be shown a priori, it must be deduced from the nature of the senses and of the understanding. But since we first have to become acquainted with these a posteriori, it will depend on the classification and enumeration of [their] objects [obiecte]. This seems also to be the path you take in the third section. In this sense it seems to me quite correct to say that truths that integrally involve space and location [Ort] are of an entirely

From ]. H. Lambert, October /j, ijyo

• . 61

different sort from those that must be regarded as eternal and immutable. I merely mentioned this in my Alethiology, No. 81.87 [in Lambert's Neues Organon (1764)], for it is not so easy to give the reason why truths integrally involve time and location in this way and in no other, even though the question is extremely important. But there I was talking only of existing things. The truths of geometry and chronometry, however, involve time and location essentially, not merely accidentally; and in so far as the concepts of space and time are eternal, the truths of geometry and chronometry belong to the class of eternal, immutable truths also. Now you ask whether these truths are sensuous? I can very well grant that they are. The difficulty seems to lie in the concepts of time and location and could be expressed without reference to this question. The first four statements in your No. 14 seem to me quite correct; 3 and it is especially good that you insist on the true concept of continuity, which metaphysics seems to have completely forgotten,3 since people wanted to bring it in as the idea of a set of connected simple entities [Complexus Entium Simplicium] and therefore had to alter the concept. The difficulty actually lies in che fifth statement. You do not offer the statement, time is the subjective condition [Tempus est subiectiva conditio], and so on, as a definition.4 It is nevertheless supposed to indicate something peculiar and essential to time. Time is undeniably a conditio sine qua non and belongs therefore to the representation of every sensible 2

The propositions are as follows: ( 1 ) The idea of time does not originate in, but is presupposed by, the senses. (2) The idea of time is singular, not general. (3) The idea of time, therefore, is an intuition . . . not a sensuous but a pure intuition. (4) Time is a continuous quantity. . . . (Kant's Werk.e,

II, 398 ff.)

3 In discussing the fourth proposition (see n. 2), Kant argues: " A continuous quantity is one that does not consist of simple parts. . . . The metaphysical [Leibnizian] law of continuity is this: All changes are continuous or Sowing, that is, opposite states succeed each other only by an intermediate series of different states." Lambert is criticising the Wolffian metaphysics, which maintained that "if in a composite the parts are arranged next to each other in turn in such an order that it is absolutely impossible that others be placed between them in some other order, then the composite is called a continuum. By the agency of God, continuity precludes the possible existence of a distinct part intermediate between two adjoining parts." (See Christian Wolff, Philosophia prima, Sive Ontologia [173Ö], No. 554, and Cosmologia Generalis [ 1 7 3 1 ], Nos. 176 ff.)

* " T i m e is the subjective condition necessary, because of the nature of the human mind, for co-ordinating any sensible objects among themselves by means of a certain law." (Kant's IVer^e, II, 400.)

62 •

From ]. H. Lambert, October

13,

IJ-JO

object and of every object integrally involving time and location. Time is also particularly necessary in order that any human being have such representations. It is also a pure intuition [Intuitus purus], not a substance, not a mere relation. It is distinct [sie differiert] from duration [dauer] in the way location is distinct from space. It is a particular determination of duration. Moreover, it is not an accident that perishes along with substances, and so on. These propositions are all correct. They lead to no definition, and the best definition will always be that time is time, since we do not want to involve ourselves in logical circularity by defining it in terms of its relations to things that are in time. Time is a more determinate concept than duration, and for that reason, too, it leads to more negative propositions. For example, whatever is in time has some duration [dauert]. But the reverse does not hold, in so far as one demands a beginning and an end for "being in time." Eternity is not in time, since its duration is absolute. Any substance that has absolute duration is likewise not in time. Everything that exists has duration, but not everything is in time, and so on. With a concept as clear as that of time, we do not lack propositions. The trouble seems to lie only in the fact that one must simply think time and duration and not define them. All changes are bound to time and are inconceivable without time. 2{ changes are real, then time is real, whatever it may be. If time is unreal, then no change can be real. I think, though, that even an idealist must grant at least that changes really exist and occur in his representations, for example, their beginning and ending. Thus time cannot be regarded as something unreal. It is not a substance, and so on, but a finite determination of duration, and like duration, it is somehow real in whatever this reality may consist. If this cannot be identified without danger of confusion, by means of the words we use for other things, it will either require the introduction of a new primitive term or it will have to remain unnamed. The reality of time and of space seems to have something so simple and peculiar about it that it can only be thought and not defined. Duration appears to be inseparable from existence. Whatever exists has a duration that is either absolute or of a certain span, and conversely, whatever has duration must necessarily, while it lasts, exist. Existing things that do not have absolute duration are temporally ordered, in so far as they begin, continue, change, cease, and so on. Since I cannot deny reality to changes, until somebody teaches me otherwise, I also cannot say that time

From ]. H. Lambert, October / j , /770

• 63

(and this is true of space as well) human representations. And as for that involve the notion of time, it ambiguities that the word "time"

is only a helpful device for the colloquial phrases in use is always well to notice the has in them. For example,

A long time is an interval of time or of two moments [intervallum temporis vel duorum momentorum j and means "a definite duration." At this or that time, and so on, is either a definite moment, as in astronomy, the time of setting, of rising [tempus immersionis, emersionis], and so on, or a smaller or larger interval preceding or following a moment, an indefinite duration or point in time, and so on. You will gather easily enough how I conceive location [Ort] and space [Raum], Ignoring the ambiguities of the words, I propose the analogy, Time : Duration = Location : Space The analogy is quite precise, except that space has three dimensions, duration only one, and besides this each of these concepts has something peculiar to it. Space, like duration, has absolute but also finite determinations. Space, like duration, has a reality peculiar to it, which we cannot explain or define by means of words that are used for other things, at least not without danger of being misleading. It is something simple and must be thought. The whole intellectual world [Gedankenwelt] is non-spatial; it does, however, have a counterpart [Simulachrum ] of space, which is easily distinguishable from physical space. Perhaps this bears a still closer resemblance to it than merely a metaphoric one. The theological difficulties that, especially since the time of Leibniz and Clarke, 5 have made the theory of space a thorny problem have so far not confused me. I owe ail my success to my preference for leaving undetermined various topics that are impervious to clarification. Besides, I did not want to peer at the succeeding parts of metaphysics when working on ontology. I won't complain if people want to regard time and space as mere pictures and appearances. For, in addition to the fact that constant appearance is for us truth, though the foundations are never discovered or only at some future time; it is also useful in ontology to take up 5 The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence of 1 7 1 5 and 1 7 1 6 was published in London, 1 7 1 7 , and in German translation, Frankfurt, 1720. For a recent discussion of the controversy, see Robert Paul Wolff, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1 9 6 3 ) , pp. 4-8.

64

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From J. H. Lambert, October t],

IJJO

concepts borrowed from appearance, since the theory must finally be applied to phenomena again. For that is also how the astronomer begins, with the phenomenon; deriving his theory of the construction of the world from phenomena, he applies it again to phenomena and their predictions in his Ephemerides' [star calendars], In metaphysics, where the problem of appearance is so essential, the method of the astronomer will surely be the safest. The metaphysician can take everything to be appearance, separate the empty from the real appearance, and draw true conclusions from the latter. If he is successful, he shall have few contradictions arising from the principles and win much favor. It .only seems necessary to have time and patience. I shall be brief here in regard to the fifth section. I would regard it as very important if you could find a way of showing more deeply the ground and origin of truths integrally involving space and time. As far as this section is concerned with method, however, I would say here what I said about time. For if changes, and therefore also time and duration, are something real, it seems to follow that the proposed division in section five must have other, and in part more narrow, intentions; and according to these, the classification might also be different. This occurred to me in Nos. 25-26. In regard to N o. 27, the ' whatever exists, exists in some place and at some time" [Ouicquid est, est alicubi et aliquando], is partly in error and partly ambiguous, if it is supposed to mean located at a time and in a place [in tempore et in loco]. Whatever has absolute duration is not in time [in tempore], and the intellectual world is only "located in" [in loco] the aforementioned counterpart [Simulachri] of space or in the "place" [loco] of intellectual space [Gedankenraums]. What you say in No. 28, and in the note on pages 2-3 concerning the mathematical infinite, that it has been ruined by the definitions in metaphysics and that something else has been substituted for it, has my full approval. In regard to the "being and not being at the same time" [Simul esse et non esse] mentioned in No. 28, I think that a counterpart of time [Simulachrum temporis] exists in the intellectual world as well, and the phrase "at the same time" [Simul] is therefore used in a different sense when it occurs in the proofs of absolute truths that are not tied to time and place. I should think that the counterpart of space and time [,Simulacrum spatii et temporis] in the intellectual world could also be considered in the theory you have in mind. It is an

From J. H. Lambert, October /J, 1770

• 65

imitation of actual space and actual dme and can readily be distinguished from them. Our symbolic knowledge is a thing halfway between sensing and actual pure thinking. If we proceed correcdy in the delineation of the simples and in the manner of our synthesizing, we thereby get reliable rules for constructing signs of things that are so highly synthesized that we need not review them again and can nevertheless be sure that the sign represents the truth. No one has yet formed himself a clear representation of all the members of an infinite series, and no one is going to do so in the future. But we are able to do arithmetic with such series, to give their sum, and so on, by virtue of the laws of symbolic knowledge. We thus extend ourselves far beyond the borders of our actual [wirklichen] thinking. The sign V — i represents an unthinkable non-thing. And yet it can be used very well in finding theorems. What are usually regarded as specimens of the pure understanding can be viewed most of the time as specimens of symbolic knowledge. This is what I said in No. 122 of my Phaenomenology with reference to question No. no. 8 And I have nothing against your making the claim quite general, in No. 10. But I shall stop here and let you make whatever use you wish of what I have said. Please examine carefully the sentences I have underlined and, if you have dme, let me know what you think of them. Never mind the postage. Till now I have not been able to deny all reality to time and space, or to consider them mere images and appearance. I think that every change would then have to be mere appearance too. And this would contradict one of my main principles (No. 54, Phaenomenology). If changes have reality, then I must grant it to time as well. Changes follow one another, begin, continue, cease, and so on, and all these expressions are temporal. If you can instruct me otherwise, I shall not expect to lose much. Time and space will be real appearances, and their 5 "Phänomenologie oder Lehre von dem Schein" is a part of Lambert's Nettes Orgartort. The claim made by Kant, Co which Lambert refers, is that man is "incapable of any intuition of intellectual concepts," so that our cognition must be "symbolical." Since "all the material of our cognition is given only by the senses, but the noumenon, as such, is not conceivable by representations drawn from sensations, the intellectual concept is destitute of all data of human intuition." (Wer^e, II, 396.) In Lambert's book, the question is raised "to what extent it is possible for us to have a distinct representation of truths without any sensuous images?" He argues that words and signs must be used as substitutes for images and that by means of them it is possible to transcend the imagination. Algebra is said to be a perfect example of this.

66 •

From J. H. Lambert. October 13, l-]~}0

foundation is an existent something that truly conforms to time and space just as precisely and constandy as the laws of geometry are precise and constant. The language of appearance will thus serve our purposes just as precisely as the unknown "true" language. I must say, though, that an appearance that absolutely never deceives us could well be something more than mere appearance. . . . I have the honor of being, very respectfully, Your most devoted servant, J. H .

Berlin

From Moses Mendelssohn, December 25, - 63 -

VOL. x, pp.

LAMBERT

IJJQ

113-16

Noble sir, Distinguished professor, Mr. Marcus Herz, who is indebted to you for your instruction and even more for the wisdom you imparted to him in your personal association, continues gloriously on the path that he began under your tutelage. I endeavor to encourage his progress a little through my friendship. I am sincerely fond of him and have the pleasure of almost daily conversations with him. Nature has truly been generous to him. He has a clear understanding, a gentle heart, a controlled imagination, and a certain subtlety of mind that seems to be peculiar to that race. But how lucky for him that these natural gifts were so early led on the path of truth and goodness. How many people, without this good fortune, left to themselves in the immeasurable region of truth and error, have had to consume their valuable time and best energies in a hundred vain attempts, so that they lacked both time and power to follow the right road when at last, after much groping about, they found it. Would that I might have had a Kant for a friend before my twentieth year! Your dissertation has now reached my eager hands, and I have read it with much pleasure. Unfortunately my nervous infirmities make it impossible for me of late to give as much effort of thought to a speculative work of this stature as it deserves. One can see that

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From Moses Mendelssohn, December 25,

IJ-JO

this little book is the fruit of long meditation and that it must be viewed as part of a whole system, the author's own creation, of which he has only shown us a sample. The ostensible obscurity of certain passages is a clue to the practiced reader that this work must be- part of a larger whole with which he has not yet been presented. For the good of metaphysics, a science that, alas, has fallen on sad days, it would be a shame for you to keep your thoughts in stock for long without offering them to us. Man's life is short. How quickly the end overtakes us, while we still cherish the thought of improving on what we have. And why do you so carefully avoid repeating what you have said before? Old ideas are seen in another light, suggesting new and surprising views, when they appear in the context of your new creations. Since you possess a great talent for writing in such a way as to reach many readers, one hopes that you will not always restrict yourself to the few adepts who are up on the latest things and who are able to guess what lies undisclosed behind the published hints. Since I do not quite count myself as one of these adepts, I dare not tell you ail the thoughts that your dissertation aroused in me. Allow me only to set forth a few, which actually do not concern your major theses but only some peripheral matters. Pages 2-3 [Werke, II, 388]. You will find some thoughts concerning infinite extension, similar though not as penetratingly expressed, in the second edition of my Philosophische Schriften, now in press. I shall be honored to send you a copy. Mr. Herz can testify that everything was ready for the printer before I received your book, and I told him of my pleasure at finding that a man of your stature should agree with me on these points. Page 1 1 [Werke, II, 396]. You regard Lord Shaftesbury as at least a distant follower of Epicureanism. But I have always thought that one must distinguish carefully between Shaftesbury's "moral instinct" and the feeling of pleasure [Wollust\ of Epicurus. The former, for Shaftesbury, is merely an innate faculty for distinguishing good from evil by means of the mere feeling [of pleasure or displeasure] that these arouse. For Epicurus, on the other hand, the feeling of pleasure is not only a criterion of goodness [criterium boni] but is itself supposed to be the highest good [summum bonum] 1 In No. 9 of the dissertation, Kant attributed to Shaftesbury and Epicurus the view that the feelings of pleasure or displeasure are the criteria of morality.

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• From Moses Mendelssohn, December 25,

IJ-JO

Page 15 [ W e r k e , II, 399], Quid significet vocula post. . . } This difficulty seems to demonstrate the poverty of language rather than the incorrectness of the concept. The little word "after" [post] originally signifies a chronological order; but it is possible to use it to indicate any order in general where A is possible only when or in case B does not exist. In short, the order in which two absolutely (or even hypothetically) contradictory things can exist. You will object that my unavoidable words "when or in case" presuppose the idea of time. Very well, then, let us shun those litde words, too, if you like. I begin with the following explication: If A and B are both real and are the immediate (or even the remote) consequences [rationaia] of a ground, C, I call them hypothetically compatible things [compossibilia secundum quid]: if they are unequally remote consequences, or rationaia, I call them hypothetically incompatible. I continue: Hypothetically compatible things (things that in this world are compossibilia) are simultaneous; hypothetically incompatible real things [Actualia], however, are successive, to wit, the nearer rationatum precedes, and the more remote one follows. Here, I hope, there occurs no word presupposing the idea of time. In any case, it rests more with language than with the thoughts. For several reasons I cannot convince myself that time is something merely subjective. Succession is after all at least a necessary condition of the representations that finite minds have. But finite minds are not only subjects; they are also objects of representations, both those of God and those of their fellows. Consequendy it is necessary to regard succession as something objective. Since we have to grant the reality of succession in a representing creature and in its alterations, why not also in the sensible objects, which are the models and protoypes of representations in the world ? On page 17 [Werke, II, 401], the way you find a fallacious circularity in this way of conceiving time is not clear to me. Time is (according to Leibniz) a phenomenon and has, as do all appearances, an objective and a subjective aspect. The subjective is the continuity we attribute to it; the objective is the succession of 2 " F o r I understand what the word 'after' means only by means of the previous concept of time." Kant argues that time therefore cannot be defined by reference to the series of actual things existing one after the other.

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From Moses Mendelssohn, December 25,

IJ-JO

alterations that are equidistant consequences [rationata] of a common ground. On page 23 [Werke, II, 406], I don't think the condition eodem tempore [at the same time] is so necessary in the law of contradiction. In so far as something is the same subject, it is not possible to predicate the A and non-A of it at different times. The concept of impossibility demands no more than that the same subject cannot have two predicates, A and non-A. Alternatively, one could say it is impossible that non-A be a predicate of the subject A. I would not have been so bold as to criticize your book with such abandon had not Mr. Herz made known to me your true philosophical spirit and assured me that you would never take offense at such frankness. This attitude is so rare, among imitators, it frequently serves as a distinguishing mark of men who think for themselves. He who has himself experienced the difficulty of finding the truth, and of convincing himself that he has found it, is always more inclined to be tolerant of those who differ from him. I have the honor of being, noble sir and revered professor, most respectfully, Your most devoted servant, MOSES

MENDELSSOHN

To Marcus Merz, February '21, 7772 - 70 -

VOL. X, pp.

/29-J5

Noble sir, Esteemed friend, You do me no injustice if you become indignant at the total absence of my replies; but lest you draw any disagreeable conclusions from it, let me appeal to your understanding of the way I think. Instead of excuses, I shall give you a brief account of the kind of things that have occupied my thoughts and that cause me to put off letter-writing in my idle hours. After your departure from Königsberg I examined once more, in the intervals between my professional duties and my sorely needed relaxation, the project that we had debated, in order to adapt it to the whole of philosophy and other knowledge and in order to understand its extent

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To Marcus Herz, February 21, IJJ2

and limits. I had already previously made considerable progress in the effort to distinguish the sensible from the intellectual in the field of morals and the principles that spring therefrom. I had also long ago oudined, to my tolerable satisfaction, the principles of feeling, taste, and power of judgment, with their effects—the pleasant, the beautiful, and the good—and was then making plans for a work that might perhaps have the dde, "The Limits of Sense and Reason." I planned to have it consist of two parts, a theoretical and a practical. The first part would have two sections, ( I ) general phenomenology and (2) metaphysics, but this only with regard to its nature and method. The second part likewise would have two sections, ( 1 ) the universal principles of feeling, taste, and sensuous desire and (2) the basic principles of morality. As I thought through the theoretical part, considering its whole scope and the reciprocal relations of all its parts, I nodced that I still lacked something essential, something that in my long metaphysical studies I, as well as others, had failed to pay attendon to and that, in fact, constitutes the key to the whole secret of hitherto still obscure metaphysics. I asked myself: What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call "representation" to the object? If a representation is only a way in which the subject is affected by the object, then it is easy to see how the representation is in conformity with this object, namely, as an effect in accord with its cause, and it is easy to see how this modification [Bestimmung] of our mind can represent something, that is, have an object. Thus the passive or sensuous representations have an understandable relationship to objects, and the principles that are derived from the nature of our soul have an understandable validity for all things insofar as those things are supposed to be objects of the senses. In the same way, if that in us which we call "representation" were active with regard to the object, that is, if the object itself were created by the representation (as when divine cognitions are conceived as the archetypes of all things), the conformity of these representations to their objects could be understood. Thus the possibility of both an inteliectus arcketypi (on whose intuition the things themselves would be grounded) and an inteliectus ectypi (which would derive the data for its logical procedure from the sensuous intuition of things) is at least intelligible. However, our understanding, through its representations, is not the cause of the object (save in the case of moral ends), nor is the object [Gegenstand] the cause of the intellectual representations in the mind {in sensu

To Marcus Herz,"February21, 7772 • 71

reali). Therefore the pure concepts of the understanding must not be abstracted from sense perceptions, nor must they express the reception of representations through the senses; but though they must have their origin in the nature of the soul, they are neither caused by the object [Obiect] nor bring the object itself into being. In my dissertation I was content to explain the nature of intellectual representations in a merely negative way, namely, to state that they were not modifications of the soul brought about by the object. However, I silently passed over the further question of how a representation that refers to an object without being in any way affected by it can be possible. I had said: The sensuous representations present things as they appear, the intellectual representations present them as they are. But by what means are these things given to us, if not by the way in which they affect us? And if such intellectual representations depend on our inner activity, whence comes the agreement that they are supposed to have with objects— objects that are nevertheless not possibly produced thereby? «And the axioms of pure reason concerning these objects—how do they agree with these objects, since the agreement has not been reached with the aid of experience? In mathematics this is possible, because the objects before us are quantities and can be represented as quantities only because it is possible for us to produce their mathematical representations (by taking numerical units a given number of times). Hence the concepts of the quantities can be spontaneous and their principles can be determined a priori. But in the case of relationships involving qualities—as to how my understanding may form for itself concepts of things completely a priori, with which concepts the things must necessarily agree, and as to how my understanding may formulate real principles concerning the possibility of such concepts, with which principles experience must be in exact agreement and which nevertheless are independent of experience—this question, of how the faculty of the understanding achieves this conformity with the things themselves, is still left in a state of obscurity. Plato assumed a previous intuition of divinity as the primary source of the pure concepts of the understanding and of first principles. Mallebranche [Wc] believed in a still-continuing perennial intuition of this primary being. Various moralists have accepted precisely this view with respect to basic moral laws. Crusius believed in certain implanted rules for the purpose of forming judgments and ready-made concepts that God implanted in the

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To Marcus Herz, February 21,

ljj2

human soul just as they had to be in order to harmonize with things. Of these systems, one may call the former the infiuxus hyperphysicus and the latter the harmonia praesiabilita intellectualis. But the deus ex machina is the greatest absurdity one could hit upon in the determinadon of the origin and validity of our knowledge. It has—besides its deceptive circle in the conclusion concerning our cognitions—also this additional disadvantage: it encourages all sorts of wild notions and every pious and speculative brainstorm. While I was searching in such ways for the sources of intellectual knowledge, without which one cannot determine the nature and limits of metaphysics, I divided this science into its naturally distinct parts, and I sought to reduce the transcendental philosophy (that is to say, all concepts belonging to completely pure reason) to a certain number of categories, but not like Aristode, who, in his ten predicaments, placed them side by side as he found them in a purely chance juxtaposition. On the contrary, I arranged them according to the way they classify themselves by their own nature, following a few fundamental laws of the understanding. Without going into details here about the whole scries of investigations that has continued right down to this last goal, I can say that, so far as my essential purpose is concerned, I have succeeded and that now I am in a position to bring out a "Critique of Pure Reason" that will deal with the nature of theoretical as well as practical knowledge—insofar as the latter is purely intellectual. Of this, I will first work out the first part, which will deal with the sources of metaphysics, its methods and limits. After that I will work out the pure principles of morality. With respect to the first part, I should be in a position to publish it within three months. In mental preoccupation of such delicate nature, nothing is more of a hindrance than to be occupied with thoughts that lie outside the scope of the field. Even though the mind is not always exerting itself, it must still,ioth in its relaxed and happy moments, remain uninterruptedly open to any chance suggestion that may present itself. Encouragements and diversions must serve to maintain the mind's powers of flexibility and mobility, whereby it is kept in readiness to view the subject matter from other sides all the time and to widen its horizon from a microscopic observation to a universal oudook in order that it may adopt all conceivable positions and that views from one may verify those from another. There has been no other reason than this, my worthy friend, for To Marcus Herz, "February 21, 7772

•

73

my delay in answering your pleasant letters—for you certainly don't want me to write you empty words. With respect to your discerning and deeply thoughtful litde work, several parts have exceeded my expectations.1 However, for reasons already mentioned, I cannot let myself go in discussing details. But, my friend, the effect that an undertaking of this kind has on the status of the sciences among the educated public is such that when, because of the indisposition that threatens to interrupt its execution, I begin to feel anxious about my project (which I regard as my most important work, the greater part of which I have ready before me)—then I am frequently comforted by the thought that my work would be just as useless to the public if it is published as it would be if it remains forever unknown. For it takes a literary man with more reputation and eloquence than I have to stimulate his readers in such a way that they exert themselves to meditate on his writing. I have found your essay reviewed in the Breslau paper and, just recently, in the Göttingen paper. If the public judges the spirit and principal intent of an essay in such a fashion, ail effort is in vain. If the reviewer has taken pains to grasp the essential points of the effort, his criticism is more welcome to the author than all the excessive praise resulting from a superficial evaluation. The Göttingen reviewer dwells on several applications of the system that in themselves are trivial and with respect to which I myself have since changed my views—with the result, however, that my major purpose has only gained thereby. A single letter from Mendelssohn or Lambert means more to an author in terms of making him reexamine his theories than do ten such opinions from superficial pens. Honest Pastor Schultz, the best philosophical brain I know in this neighborhood, has grasped the points of the system very well; 1 wish that he might get busy on your little essay, too. There are two mistaken interpretations in his evaluation of the system that he is examining. The first one is the criticism that space, instead of being the pure form of sensuous appearance, might very well be a true intellectual intuition and thus might be objective. The obvious answer is that there is a reason why space is not given in advance as objective or as intellectual, namely, if we analyze fully the representation of space, we have in it neither a repre1

74

Herz's Betrachtungen aus der spekulativen Weltwetsheit ( 1 7 7 1 ) .

•

To Marcus Herz, February 21,

ij72

sentation of things (as capable of existing only in space) nor a real connection (which cannot occur without things); that is to say, we have no effects, no relationships to regard as grounds, consequently no real representadon of an object or anything real, nothing of what inheres in the thing, and therefore we must conclude that space is nothing objective. The second misunderstanding leads him to an objection that has made me reflect considerably, because it seems to be the most serious objection that can be raised against the system, an objection that seems to occur naturally to everybody, and one that Mr. Lambert has raised.2 It runs like this: Changes are something real (according to the testimony of inner sense). Now, they are possible only on the assumption of time; therefore time is something real that is involved in the determination of the things in themselves. Then I asked myself: Why does one not accept the following parallel argument? Bodies are real (according to the testimony of outer sense). Now, bodies are possible only under the condition of space; therefore space is something objective and real that inheres in the things themselves. The reason lies in the fact that it is obvious, in regard to outer things, that one cannot infer the reality of the object from the reality of the representation, though in the case of inner sense the thinking or the existence of thought and the existence of my own self are one and the same. The key to this problem lies herein. There is no doubt that I must think my own state under the form of time and that therefore the form of the inner sensibility does give me the appearance of changes. I do not deny that changes are real, any more than I deny that bodies are real, even though by real I only mean that something real corresponds to the appearance. I can't even say that the inner appearance changes, for how would I observe this change if it doesn't appear to my inner sense? If one should say that it follows from this that everything in the world is objectively and in itself unchangeable, then I would reply: Things are neither changeable nor unchangeable. Just as Baumgarten states in his Metaphysics, paragraph r8: "The absolutely impossible is neither hypothetically possible nor impossible, for it cannot be considered under any condition," so also here, the things of the world are objectively or 2

Sec Lambert's letter of October 1 3 , 1770 [ 6 1 ] .

T o Marcus Herz,"February21, 7772 •

75

in themselves neither in one and the same state at different times nor in different states, for thus understood they are not in dme at all. But enough about this. It appears that one doesn't obtain a hearing by stating only negative propositions. One must rebuild on the plot where one has torn down, or at least, if one has cleared away the brainstorms, one must make the pure insights of the understanding dogmatically intelligible and delineate their limits. With this I am now occupied, and this is the reason why, often contrary to my own intent of answering friendly letters, I withhold from such tasks what free time my very frail constitution allows me for contemplation and give myself over to the net of my thoughts. And so long as you find me so negligent in replying, you should also give up the idea of repaying me and suffer me to go without your letters. Even so, I would count on your constant affection and friendship for me just as you may always remain assured of mine. If you will be satisfied with short answers then you shall have them in the future. Between us the assurance of the honest concern that we have for each other must take the place of formalities. I await your next delightful letter as a token of your sincere reconciliation. And please fill it up with such accounts as you must have aplenty, living as you do at the very seat of the sciences, and please excuse my taking the liberty of asking for this. Greet Mr. Mendelssohn and Mr. Lambert, likewise Mr. Suitzer, and convey my apologies to these gentlemen for similar reasons. Do remain forever my friend, just as I am yours! I. K A N T

Königsberg

To Marcus Herz [toward the end of IJJS\ - 79 -

VOL. x, pp.

143-46

. Noble sir, Esteemed friend, It pleases me to receive news of the good progress of your endeavors, but even more to see the signs of kind remembrance

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To Marcus Herz [toward the end of 1773]

and of friendship in the communications imparted to me. Training in the practice of medicine, under the guidance of a capable teacher, is exactly what I wish. The cemetery must in the future not be filled before the young doctor has learned how to attack the disease properly. Do make many careful observations. Here as elsewhere, theories are often directed more to the relief of the idea than to the mastery of the phenomenon. Macbride's Systematic Medical Science1 (I believe you are already acquainted with it) appealed to me very much in this regard. In general, I now feel much better than before. The reason is that I now understand better what makes me ill. Because of my sensitive nerves, all medicines are without exception poison for me. The only thing I very occasionally use is a half teaspoonful of fever bark with water, when I am plagued by acid before noon. I find this much better than any absorbentia. But I have given up the daily use of this remedy, with the intention of strengthening myself. It gave me an irregular pulse, especially toward evening, which rather frightened me, until I guessed the cause and, adjusting it, relieved the indisposition. Study the great variety of constitutions. My own would be destroyed by any doctor who is not a philosopher. You search industriously but in vain in the book fair catalog for a certain name beginning with the letter K. After the great effort I have made on the not inconsiderable work that I have almost completed, nothing would have been easier than to let my name be paraded therein. But since I have come this far in my projected reworking of a science that has been so long cultivated in vain by half the philosophical world, since I see myself in possession of a principle that will completely solve what has hitherto been a riddle and that will bring the misleading qualities of the self-alienating understanding under certain and easily applied rules, I therefore remain obstinate in my resolve not to let myself be seduced by any author's itch into seeking fame in easier, more popular fields, until I shall have freed my thorny and hard ground for general cultivation. I doubt that many have tried to formulate and carry out to completion an entirely new conceptual science. You can hardly imagine how much time and effort this project requires, considering the method, the divisions, the search for exactly appropriate 1 David Macbride ( 1 7 2 6 - 7 8 ) , a physician in Dublin. A German translation of his A Methodical Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Physic (London, 1 7 7 2 ) was published in 1773.

To Marcus Herz [toward the end of 7 7 7 3 ]

• 77

terms. Nevertheless, it inspires me with a hope that, without fear of being suspected of the greatest vanity, I reveal to no one but you: the hope that by means of this work philosophy will be given a durable form, a different and—for religion and morality—more favorable turn, but at the same time that philosophy will be given an appearance that will make her attractive to shy mathematicians, so that they may regard her pursuit as both possible and respectable. I still sometimes hope that I shall have the work ready for delivery by Easter. Even when I take into account the frequent indispositions that can always cause interruptions, I can still promise, almost certainly, to have it ready a little after Easter. I am eager to see your investigation of moral philosophy appear. I wish, however, that you did not want to apply the concept of reality (perfection) to moral philosophy, a concept that is so important in the highest abstractions of speculative reason and so empty when applied to the practical. For this concept is transcendental, whereas the highest practical elements are pleasure and displeasure, which are empirical, and their object may thus be anything at all. Now, a mere pure concept of the understanding cannot state the laws or prescriptions for the objects of pleasure and displeasure, since the pure concept is entirely undetermined in regard to objects of sense experience. The highest ground of morality must not simply be inferred from the pleasant; it must itself be pleasing in the highest degree. For it is no mere speculative idea; it must have the power to move. Therefore, though the highest ground of morality is intellectual, it must nevertheless have a direct relation to the primary springs of the will. 1 shall be glad when I have finished my transcendental philosophy, which is actually a critique of pure reason, as then I can turn to metaphysics, which has only two parts, the metaphysics of nature and the metaphysics of morals, of which I shall present the latter first. I therefore look forward to the future. 1 have read your review of Platner's Anthropologie.2 I would not have guessed the reviewer by myself at this time, and I was pleased by the evident progress of his skill. This winter I am giving, for the second time, a lecture course on anthropology, a subject that I now intend to make into a proper academic discipline. But my plan is quite unique. I intend to disclose the bases 2 Herz reviewed Ernst Platner's Anthropologie für Arzte und Weitweise (Leipzig, 1 7 7 : ) in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, X X ( 1 7 7 3 ) , N'o. 1 , pp. 25-51.

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To Marcus Herz [toward the end of

ij-3]

of all sciences, the principles of morality, of skill, of human intercourse, of the method of molding and governing men, and thus of everything that pertains to the practical. I shall seek to discuss phenomena and their laws rather than the possibility of modifying universal human nature. Hence the subde and, to my view, eternally futile inquiries as to the manner in which bodily organs are connected with thought I omit entirely. I include so many observations of ordinary life that my listeners have constant occasion to compare their ordinary experience with my remarks and thus, from beginning to end, lind the lectures entertaining and never dry. In my spare time, I am trying to prepare a preliminary study for the students out of this very pleasant empirical study, an analysis of the nature of skill (prudence) and even wisdom that, along with physical geography and distinct from all other learning, can be called knowledge of the world. I saw my portrait in front of the library. It is an honor that disturbs me a little, for, as you know, I earnestly avoid all appearance of surreptitiously seeking eulogies or ostentatiously creating a stir. The portrait is well struck though not striking. I note with pleasure that this project stems from the amiable partisanship of my former students. The review of your work that appears in the same issue 3 proves what I feared: that it takes quite a long time to put new thoughts into such a light that a reader may get the author's specific meaning and the weight of his arguments, until the reader may reach the point where such thoughts are fully and easily familiar. I am, with most sincere affection and regard, Your devoted servant and friend, I. KANT

To J. C. Lavater, April 28, 7775 - 99 -

VOL. X, p p . I 7 6 - J 9

. . . You ask for my opinion of your discussion of faith and prayer. Do you realize whom you are asking? A man who believes 3 Lambert's review of H e n ' s commentary on Kant's dissertation. Herz's essay, Betrachtunger. aus der spekulativen Weltweisheit, was published in I77I-

To J.C. Lavater, April 28,1775

• 79

that, in the final moment, only the purest candor concerning our most hidden inner convictions can stand the test and who, like Job, takes it to be sin to flatter God and make inner confessions, perhaps forced out by fear, that fail to agree with what we freely think. I distinguish the teachings of Christ from the report we have of those teachings. In order that the former may be seen in their purity, I seek above all to separate out the moral teachings from all the dogmas of the New Testament. These moral teachings are certainly the fundamental doctrine of the Gospels, and the ' remainder can only serve as an auxiliary to them. Dogmas tell us only what God has done to help us see our frailty in seeking justification before Him, whereas the moral law tells us what we must do to make ourselves worthy of justification. Suppose we were ignorant of what God does and suppose we were convinced only of this: that, because of the holiness of His law and the insuperable evil of our hearts, God must have hidden some supplement to our deficiencies somewhere in the depth of His decrees, something we could humbly rely on, if only we should do what is in our power, so as not to be unworthy of His law. If that were so, we should have all the guidance we need, whatever the manner of communication between the divine goodness and ourselves might be. Our trust in God is unconditional, that is, it is not accompanied by any inquisitive desire to know how His purposes will be achieved or, still less, by any presumptuous confidence that the soul's salvation will follow from our acceptance of certain Gospel disclosures. That is the meaning of the moral faith that I find in the Gospels, when I seek out the pure, fundamental teachings that underlie the mixture of facts and revelations there. Perhaps, inview of the opposition of Judaism, miracles and revelations were needed, in those days, to promulgate and disseminate a pure religion, one that would do away with all the world's dogmas. And perhaps it was necessary to have many ad hominem arguments, which would have great force in those times. But once the doctrine of the purity of conscience in faith and of the good transformation of our lives has been sufficiently propagated as the only true religion for man's salvation (the faith that God, in a manner we need not at all understand, will provide what our frail natures lack, without our seeking His aid by means of the so-called worship that religious fanaticism always demands)—when this true religious structure has been built up so that it can maintain itself in the world—then the scaffolding must be taken down. I

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To ]. C. Lavater, April 28,1775

respect the reports of the evangelists and aposdes, and I put my humble trust in that means of reconciliation with God of which they have given us historical tidings—or in any other means that God, in his secret counsels, may have concealed. For I do not become in the least bit a better man if I know this, since it concerns only what God does; and I dare not be so presumptuous as to declare before God that this is the real means, the only means whereby I can attain my salvation and, so to speak, swear my soul and my salvation on it. For what those men give us are only their reports. I am not close enough to their times to be able to make such dangerous and audacious decisions. Moreover, even if I could be sure, it would not make me in any way more worthy of the good, were I to confess it, swear it, and fill up my soul with it, though that may be of help to some people. On the contrary, nothing is needed for my union with this divine force except my using my natural God-given powers in such a way as not to be unworthy of His aid or, if you prefer, unfit for it. When I spoke of New Testament dogmas I meant to include everything of which one could become convinced only through historical reports, and I also had in mind those confessions or ceremonies that are enjoined as a supposed condition of salvation. By "moral faith" I mean the unconditional trust in divine aid, in achieving all the good that, even with our most sincere efforts, lies beyond our power. Anyone can be convinced of the correctness and necessity of moral faith, once it is made clear to him. The auxiliary historical devices are not necessary for this, even if some individuals would in fact not have reached this insight without the historical revelation. Now, considered as history, our New Testament writings can never be so esteemed as to make us dare to have unlimited trust in every word of them, and especially if this were to weaken our attendveness to the one necessary thing, namely, the moral faith of the Gospels, whose excellence consists in just this: that all our striving for purity of conscience and the conscientious conversion of our lives toward the good are here drawn together. Yet all this is done in such a way that the holy law lies perpetually before our eyes and reproaches us continually for even the slightest deviation from the divine will, just as though we were condemned by a just and unrelenting judge. And no confession of faith, no appeal to holy names nor any observance of religious ceremonies can help—though the consoling hope is offered us that, if we do as much good as is in our power, trusting in the unknown and

r, April 28, I J J ;

• 81

mysterious heip of God, we shall (without meritorious "works" of any sort) partake of this divine supplement. Now, it is very clear that the apostles took this btblical doctrine of divine aid as the fundamental thesis of the Gospels, and whatever might be the actual basis of our salvation from God's point of view, the aposdes took the essential requirement for salvadon to be not the honoring of the holy teacher's religious doctrine of conduct but rather the veneration of this teacher himself and a sort of wooing of favor by means of ingrauation and encomium—the very things against which that teacher had so explicidy and repeatedly preached. Their procedure was in fact more suitable for those times (for which they were writing, without concern for later ages) than for our own. For in those days the old miracles had to be opposed by new miracles, and Jewish dogmas by Christian dogmas. Here I must quickly break off, postponing the rest till my next letter (which I enclose). My most devoted compliments to your worthy friend Mr. Pfenniger. Your sincere friend. I. KANT

To /. C. Lavater [after Aprti

28,1775]

(Enclosed in the previous letter)

- 100 - VOL. x, pp.

179-80

I would rather add something incomplete to my interrupted letter than nothing at all. My presupposition is that no book, whatever its authority might be—yes, even one based on the testimony of my own senses—can substitute for the religion of conscience. The latter tells me that the holy law within me has already made it my duty to answer for everything I do and that I must not dare to cram my soul with devotional testimonies, confessions, and so on, which do not spring from the unfeigned and unmistaking precepts of that law. For although statutes may bring about the performance of rituals, they cannot beget inner convictions. Because of this presupposition, I seek in the Gospels not the ground of my faith but its fortification, and I find in the moral spirit of the Gospels a clear distinction between what I am

82 •

To J. C. Lavater [after April 28, 1775]

obligated to do and the manner in which this message is to be introduced into the world and disseminated, a distinction, in short, between my duty and that which God has done for me. The means of disclosure of my obligations may be what it will—nothing new is thereby provided for me, though my good convictions are given new strength and confidence. So much for the clarification of that part of my letter in which I spoke of the separation of two related but unequivalent parts of the holy scriptures and of their application to me. As for your request that I give my opinion of the ideas on faith and prayer in your Vermischte Schriften ("Miscellaneous Writings" [1774]), the essential and most excellent part of the teachings of Christ is this: that righteousness is the sum of all religion and that we ought to seek it with all our might, having faith (that is, an unconditional trust) that God will then supplement our efforts and supply the good that is not in our power. This doctrine of faith forbids all our presumptuous curiosity about the manner in which God will do this, forbids the arrogance of supposing that one can know what means would be most in conformity with His wisdom; it forbids, too, all wooing of favor by the performing of rituals that someone has introduced. It allows no part of that endless religious madness to which people in all ages are inclined, save only the general and undefined trust that we shall partake of the good in some unknown way, if only we do not make ourselves unworthy of our share of it by our conduct.

To C. H. Wolfe, March 28, IJJ6 - IO9 - VOL. X, pp.

I9I-94

Noble sir, Esteemed professor, With sincerest pleasure I take this opportunity, while carrying out an assignment I have been given, to let you know of my great sympathy for your excellent school, the Philanthropin. Mr. Robert Motherby, a local English merchant and my dear friend, would like to entrust his only son, George Motherby, to the care of your school. Mr. Motherby's principles agree completely

To C.H.Wolke, March 28,1776

• 83

with those upon which your institution is founded, even in those respects in which it is farthest removed from ordinary assumptions about education. The fact that something is unusual will never deter him from freely agreeing to your proposals and arrangements in all that is noble and good. His son will be six years old on the seventh of August this year. But though he has not reached the age you require, I believe that his natural abilities and motivations are already such as to satisfy the intent of your requirement. That is why his father wants no delay in bringing the boy under good guidance, so that his need for activity may not lead him to any bad habits that would make his subsequent training more difficult. His education thus far has been purely negative, which I regard as the best that can be done for a child in those years. He has been allowed to develop his nature and his healthy reason in a manner appropriate to his years, without compulsion, and has been restrained oniy from those things that might set his mind in a wrong direction. He has been brought up without inhibitions, but not so as to be troublesome. He has never experienced force and has always been kept receptive to gende suggestions. Though his manners arc not the finest, he has been taught not to be naughty, but without his being reprimanded into bashfulness and timidity. This was ail the more necessary in order that a real ingenuousness might establish itself in him and especially so that he would not come to feel a need to lie. Some of his childish transgressions have therefore been excused so as not to give him the temptation to break the rule of truthfulness. Besides this, the only thing he has been taught is to write in Latin script when the letters are recited for him. He can do this (but only with a lead pencil). He is thus a blank slate on which nothing has yet been scribbled, a slate that should now be turned over to a master hand, so that the unerasable characteristics of sound reason, of knowledge and righteousness, may be inscribed upon it. In matters of religion, the spirit of the Philanthropin agrees perfectly with that of the boy's father. He wishes that even the natural awareness of God (as the boy's growth in age and understanding may gradually make him arrive at it) should not be aimed at devotional exercises directly but only after he has realized that these are valuable merely as a means of animating an effective conscience and a fear of God, so that one does one's duties as though they were divinely commanded. For it is folly to regard religion as nothing more than a wooing of favor and an attempt to 84

•

To C. H. Wolke, March 28, iy76

ingratiate oneself with the highest being, since this results in reducing the differences among various religions to differences of opinion as to what sort of flattery is most appealing to God. This illusion, whether based on dogmas or independent of them, is one that undermines all moral dispositions, for it takes something other than a conversion to righteousness to be the means of surreptitiously currying favor with God, as though one need not be too fastidious about righteousness since one has another exit ready in case of emergency. It is for this reason that our pupil has been kept ignorant of religious ceremonies. It may take a certain amount of skill, therefore, to give him a clear idea of their meaning when, at your discretion, he first attends such ceremonies. But he is being placed in the charge of a man who is accustomed to finding wisdom whence it truly springs, a man whose judgment can always be trusted. It would also please the boy's father very much if in the future the Philanthropin were also to teach English according to your easy and reliable method, for the boy will be going to England when his education is completed. The child has already had measles and the pox, and no particular care need be taken about illnesses. The father will be happy to pay the 250 thaler annual boarding fee, according to whatever arrangements you wish. He asks your advice about what clothes, beds, and necessary equipment are customary in your school. He hopes'that it may be possible to send the boy this summer, so that the amusements you have organized for your pupiis will make him like his new surroundings. If you have no one who could escort him, there is a reliable foreign merchant who can bring him along toward the end of July. All of these are firm decisions, not just tentative plans. I therefore hope to hear from you soon, even if only a brief reply, for I realize how busy you are with your important work. I am most sympathetic to the noble labors to which you have dedicated yourself. Your sincere admirer, friend, and servant, IMMANUEL K A N T Professor of

To C. H. Wol\e, March 28,1776

Philosophy

• 85

To Marcus Herz, November 24, 17/6 - 1 1 2 - VOL. X, pp. I98-2OO

[Kant begs that he not be compared with Lessing. As yet he has not earned it, though he hopes to. He finds his work on "The Critique of Pure Reason" often tedious; he is tempted not to follow his plan but to work instead on something easier. Yet he is drawn back.] . . . It must be possible to survey the field of pure reason, that is, of judgments that are independent of all empirical principles, since this lies a priori in ourselves and need not await any exposure from our experience. What we need in order to indicate the divisions, limits, and the whole content of that field, according to secure principles, and to lay the road marks so that in the future one can know for sure whether one stands on the floor of true reason or on that of sophistry—for this we need a critique, a discipline, a canon, and an architectonic of pure reason, a formal science, therefore, that can require nothing of those sciences already at hand and that needs tor its foundations an entirely unique technical vocabulary. I do not expect to be finished with this work before Easter and shall use part of next summer for it, to the extent that my incessandy interrupted health will allow me to work. But please do not let these intentions arouse any expectations, which are sometimes likely to be disappointed. And now dear friend, I beg of you not to be offended by my negligence in writing but hope that you will honor me with news, especially literary, from your region. My most devoted regards to Mr. Mendelssohn, and also to Mr. Engel, Mr. Lambert, and Mr. Bode, who greeted me via Dr. Reccard. Your most devoted servant and friend, I.

To Marcus Herz, November 24,1776

KANT

To Marcus Herz, August 20, i j - 1 2 0 - VOL. X, pp.

2II-I4

Noble doctor, Dearest friend, Today Mr. Mendelssohn, your worthy friend and mine (for so I flatter myself), is departing. To have a man like him in Königsberg on a permanent basis, as an indmate acquaintance, a man of such gende temperament, good spirits, and enlightenment —how that would give my soul the nourishment it has lacked so completely here, a nourishment I miss more and more as I grow older! For as far as bodily nourishment goes, you know I hardly worry about that and I am quite content with my share of earthly goods. I fear I did not manage to take full advantage of my one opportunity to enjoy this rare man, partly because I worried about interfering with his business here. The day before yesterday he honored me by attending two of my lectures, taking potluck, so to speak, since the table was not set for such a distinguished guest. The lecture must have seemed somewhat incoherent to him, since I had to spend most of the hour reviewing what I "had said before vacation. The clarity and order of the original lecture were largely absent. Please help me to keep up my friendship with this fine man. You have made me two presents, dear friend, that show me that both in talent and in feeling you are that rare student who makes all the effort that goes into my often thankless job seem amply rewarded. Your book for doctors was thoroughly appealing to me and gave me genuine pleasure, though I cannot take the slightest credit for the honor it will bring you. 1 An observant, practical mind shines through the book, along with that subtle handling of general ideas that I have noticed in you before. You are sure to achieve disunction in the medical profession if you continue to practice the art not simply as a means of livelihood but as a way of 1

Briefe an Aerzte (Mitau, 1 7 7 7 ) .

To Marcus Herz, August 20, 7777

•

87

satisfying the curiosity of the experimental philosopher and the conscientiousness of the humanitarian within you. Of the various indispositions that constantly plague me and often make me interrupt my intellectual endeavors (heartburn seems to be the general cause, though I seem to all my acquaintances just as healthy as I was twenty years ago), there is one complaint you may be able to help me with: I am not exactly constipated, but I have such a difficult and usually insufficient evacuation every morning that the remaining feces that accumulate become the cause, as far as I can tell, not only of that gas I mentioned but also of my clouded brain. To counteract this, I have sought relief in the past three weeks (when nature did not help me out with an unusual evacuation) through gentle purgatives. They did sometimes help, by accelerating an unusual movement. Most of the time, though, they produced a merely fluid evacuation, without dislodging the bulk of the impure stuff, and caused not only a feeling of weakness (which diuretic purgatives always do) but also an ensuing constipation. My doctor and good friend did not know what prescription would be exactly right for my condition.2 I notice in Monro's book on dropsy a classification of purgatives that corresponds exactly to my idea.3 He distinguishes hydragogic (diuretic) and eccoprotic (laxative) and notices correcdy that the former cause weakness. He says that the strongest of diuretics is jalap resin (resina Jalappae] and that senna leaves and rhubarb are milder. On the other hand, he regards crystals of cream of tartar and tamarinds as laxatives, which is what I need. Mr. Mendelssohn says that he himself has found the latter useful and that it consists of the pulp of the tamarinds. I would be most grateful to you if you would write me a prescription for this, which I could use from time to time. The dosage must be small for me, for I have usually reacted more than I wanted to from a smaller dosage than the doctor prescribed. Please arrange it so that I can take more or less, as necessary. 1 think your second gift robs you of an enjoyable and expensive collection, just to prove your friendship for me, a friendship that is all the more delightful because it springs from the pure sources of an excellent understanding. I have already entertained some of my 2

Johann Gerhard Trümmer. Donald Monro (1729—92), An Essay on the Dropsy and its Different Species (London, 1756). A German translation bv K. C. Krause was published in Leipzig, 1777. 3

88

•

To Marcus Hers, August 20, ^777

friends with this book, a stimulant to good taste and the knowledge of antiquity. I wish that this pleasure of which you have deprived yourself could be replaced in some way. Since we parted company my philosophical investigations, gradually extended to all sorts of topics, have taken systematic form, leading me slowly to an idea of the whole system. Not until I have that will it be possible to judge the value and interrelationships of the parts. There is an obstacle to the completion of my "Critique of Pure Reason," and all my efforts are now devoted to removing it. I hope to be through this winter. The thing that detains me is the problem of presenting these ideas with total clarity. I know that something can seem clear enough to an author himself and yet be misunderstood even by knowledgeable readers, if it departs entirely from their accustomed way of thinking. Every news of your growing success, honors, and domestic good fortune is received with the greatest interest by Your always devoted friend and servant, I. K A N T

To Marcus Herz, August 28,

ijjB

- I40 - VOL. X, pp. 24O-42

Most worthy friend, I should be very pleased to gratify your wish, especially when the purpose is connected with my own interest.1 However, it is impossible for me to do so as quickly as you ask. Whatever depends on the diligence and aptitude of my students is invariably difficult, because it is a matter of luck whether one has attentive and capable students during a certain period of time and also because those whom one has recendy had disperse themselves and are not easily to be found again. It is seldom possible to persuade one of them to give away his own transcript. But I shall try to attend to it as soon as possible. I may yet find something here or there on the logic course. But metaphysics is a course that I have 1

Herz had requested a set of lecture notes that he might use in Berlin for his o w n lectures on Kant's philosophy.

To Marcus Herz, August 28,1778

• 89

worked up in the last few years in such a way that I fear it must be difficult even for a discerning head to get precisely the right idea from somebody's lecture notes. Even though the idea seemed to me intelligible in the lecture, still, since it was taken down by a beginner and deviates greatly both from my formal statements and from ordinary concepts, it will call for someone with a head as good as your own to present it systematically and understandably. When I have finished my handbook on that part of philosophy on which I am sdll working indefatigably, which I think will be soon, then every transcription of that sort will also become fully comprehensible, through the clarity of the over-all plan. In the meantime I shall make an effort to find a serviceable set of lecture notes for your purposes. Mr. Kraus has been in Elking for several weeks but will return shordy, and I shall speak to him about it. Why don't you start with the logic. While that is progressing, the materials for the remaining work will be gathered. Although this is supposed to be a task for the winter, it may be possible to gather the supplies before the summer is over, thus allowing you time for preparation. Mr. Joel says that he left me in good health, and that is so, for I have accustomed myself for many years to regard a very restricted degree of well-being as good health, a degree of which the majority of people would complain, and, to whatever extent I can, I take recreation, rest, and conserve my strength. Without this hindrance my little projects, in the pursuit of which I am otherwise content, would have been brought to completion long ago. I am, in immutable friendship and dedication, Your most devoted I.

KANT

P.S. Did you also receive my letter of about a half a year ago, with its enclosure for Breitkopf in Leipzig?

To Marcus Herz, October 20, IJJ8 - I4I - VOL. X, pp.

242-43

Dearest and worthiest friend, To be of service to my upright and indefatigable capable friend, in a matter that will reflect back some approbation on

90 •

To Marcus Herz, October 20,

myself as well, is always pleasant and important to me. However, there are many difficulties in carrying out the commission you gave me. Those of my students who are most capable of grasping everything are just the ones who bother least to take explicit and verbatim notes; rather, they write down only the main points, which they can think over afterward. Those who are most thorough in note-taking are seldom capable of distinguishing the important from the unimportant. They pile a mass of misunderstood stuff under that which they may possibly have grasped correctly. Besides, I have almost no private acquaintance with my listeners, and it is difficult for me even to find out which ones might have accomplished something useful. My empirical psychology is now briefer, since I lecture on anthropology. But since I make improvements or extensions of my lectures from year to year, especially in the systematic and, if I may say, architectonic form and ordering of what belongs within the scope of a science, my students cannot very easily help themselves by copying from each other. However, I do not abandon the hope of gratifying your wish, especially if Mr. Kraus helps me. He will arrive in Berlin toward the end of November. He is one of my favorite and most capable students. Please have padence unul then. Especially I beg you to do me the favor of announcing to His Excellency, Mr. von Zedlitz, 1 through his secretary, Mr. Biester, that the aforementioned Mr. Kraus will deliver the requested transcript. My letter to Breitkopf may actually have arrived there, but perhaps he had nothing to reply to the rather negadve answer I had to give him; otherwise no reason. I close hurriedly and am still Your true friend and servant, I. KANT 1 Ksrl Abraham von Zedlitz ( 1 7 3 1 - 9 3 ) , minister of education in the Department of Spiritual Affairs, to whom Kant dedicated the Critique.

To Marcus Herz, October 20, iyy8

• 91

From Marcus Herz, November 24, - I43

-

IJJ8

VOL. X , P P . 2 4 3 - 4 5

Honored professor, revered teacher, Here I am again, dunning. Isn't it true, dearest sir, I'm an impetuous person? Forgive me, by assuming that I know the man to whom I dare to be impetuous; it can be no one else than he who dwells constantly in the center of my thoughts and my heart! I am enjoying a degree of happiness this winter to which I never aspired even in my dreams. Today, for the twentieth time, I am lecturing on your philosophical teachings to approbation that exceeds all my expectations. The number of people in my audience grows daily; it is already over thirty, all of them people of high status or profession. Professors of medicine, preachers, lawyers, government administrators, and so on, of whom our worthy minister [Zedlitz] is the leading one; he is always the first to arrive and the last to leave, and until now he has not missed a single session, as neither have any of the others. It seems to me that this course is in many ways a remarkable thing, and not a day passes that I do not reflect on the impossibility of ever repaying you, through any act of mine, the tenth part of the happiness I enjoy in a single hour, which I owe to you and to you alone! I have now completed half of the logic and hope to be finished with the other half by Januarv. I have several very complete notebooks of your lectures on logic, and to these I owe my audience's applause; here and there your fruitful ideas led me to other views that appeal to my listeners. But the foundations of it all are yours. It will all depend on you whether I can carry of? the metaphysics course. I don't even have complete copies of your lectures, and certainly the whole business will be virtually impossible for me without them. T o build up the course from scratch, all alone, is not within my powers, nor have I the time, since most of my time is taken up with my practical work. I beg you again, therefore, to send me, with the earliest mail, at least some incomplete notebooks, if the complete ones are not to be 92

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From Marcus Hers. November 24,

IJJ8

had. Diversity, I think, will compensate for incompleteness, sincc each set of notes will have nodced something different. I beg you especially for an ontology and a cosmology. I take the liberty of recommending to you a young nobleman, Mr. von Nolte, of Kurland, who is passing through here. He is a very clever and well-educated young man, who has been in the service of France for a year and now is going into that of Russia. He will bring you something that should go with your anthology. From certain letters that Mr. Kraus wrote to his friends, I see how troubled the good man is about his stay here. Please be good enough to assure him that everything will be done to make his stay as pleasant as possible. He is always welcome to dine at Friedländer's, and free lodging has also been arranged. I am and shall always be, with the greatest respect, Your honored sir's most devoted servant, M.

To Marcus Herz, February - 146

- VOL. X,

HERZ

7779

p. 24S

. . . A certain misology that you, as I, detected -and regretted in Mr, Kraus derives, as does much misanthropy, from this: that in the first instance one loves philosophy, in the second, people, but one finds both ungrateful, partly because one expected too much of them, partly because one is too impauent in awaiting the reward for one's efforts from the two. I know this sullen mood also; but a kind glance from either of them soon reconciles us with them again and serves to make our attachment to them even stronger. . . .

To Marcus Herz, May

1,

IJ8I

- 164 - VOL. X, pp. 266-6J

In the current Easter book fair there will appear a book of mine, entided Critique of Pure Reason. It is being published by Hart-

To Marcus Herz, February 4, I-JJ 224 Judgments, types of, 14S. See also A priori; Analytic synthetic distinction; Synthetic a priori judgments Jung-Srilling, Heinrich, 131 f.

Kästner, A. G., 179(11.1) Kant, J. H., 31, 185 Kanter, J. J., 47, 50 Kant's family and genealogy, 31, 185, 236 f. Kant's health, 77, 88, 177, 211, 251 £ Ideality, 196. See also Space and time Kierkegaard, S., 6(11.5) Ideas of reason, 134, 142, 149, 180, Kiesewettcr, J. G. C. C., 31, :6i65, 172ff.,206 f., 209 5., 252 f. 230 Inaugural dissertation: Jh: Form Knobloch, Charlotte von, 4 (n.2) Kraus, C. I. 90, 91. 93 and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible

World, 5. 10,

58-76.. 94, 109 Inner sense, 75, 130

inquiry into the Distinctness of the Fundamental Principles of Natural Theology and Morals, An, 8

Intuition, 52, 141 ff., 180 f., 184, 190 f.; intellectual, 19; pure, 125, 141, 184, 246. See also

Kritik der praktischer, Vernunft. See Critique of Practica Reason Kriti\ der reinen Vernunft. See Critique of Pure Reason Kritik der Urteilskraft. See Critique of Judgment

Kroner, Richard, 28 a. :

Lambert, J. K.. 4, 4(^3), 5, 10, 43-53. 58-67, 76. 86, 96-98,

Space and dme 3 ; . 17 Intuitive reason or understanding, Laplace, Marquis Pierre Simon 7, 156, 230 de, 4Ö(n.6) Lavater, J. C., 14, 79-82 Jachmann,}. B., 134 ff. Lehmann, J. H. I., 31 Jacobi, F. H., 2:, 22, 22(11.23), Leibniz, Baron Gottfried Wilhelm i2o(n.i), 123, X24(a-3)> 157^ von, 7, 11, 12, 13, 17, 19, 28, 51, 64, 109(11-4), 124(11.3), 148 t, 228 152, 154, 177 Jacobi, Maria Charlotte, 4(11.2) Lessing, G. E., 7, 22, 23, 86, 120 Jakob, L. H., 29, 124! (n.i) Jesuits, 17, 114 Jews, 27 n., 107 f., 136, 212. For Lichtenberg, G. C., 172 Kant's usual attitude, see his Lindbiom, J. A., 236 f. letters to Herz and Mendelssohn Lindner, J. G.. 4(n.a) Index •

257

Locke, John, 52,143 Love, 24 ff, 188 ff. Maimon, Salomon, 26,133 t , 15156, 175 ff., 196 ff., 212 Malebranche, Nicolas, 72. Marburg, University of, 122 (n.i) Marital and extramarital relations, Kant's views on, 23f., 115-18, 235 £. Mathematics, 8, 11, 52£., 62-66, 128-31, 135, 140,145 f., 148,155, 166-69, 179 Meiners, Christoph, 7, 122(0.1) Mendelssohn, Moses, 3 a. 4, 7, 3, 9, 1 0 , 1 5 , IÖ, 2 1 , 2 2 , 5 4 - 5 7 , 6 7 -

70, 76, 86, 87, 96, 103, i o 5-8, i2o(n.i), 123 f., 124(0.3) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Philosophy, 49, 49 n., 119, 170 Metaphysics, 8, 9, ro, n , 29, 31,44, 48 ff-, 55» 57,59> 62, 64 £, 71, 9597, 106, 125, 139, 144, 179, 182 Metaphysics of Morals, 4(0.2), 59, 119, 132, 200, 207, 238 Metaphysik, der Sitten. See Metaphysics of Morals Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. See Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Philosophy Mind and body, relation of, 56 f., 79. See also Spiritual substances Montesquieu, Baron de la Brede et de, 38 £., 39 n. Moral law, 192, 194, 199(0.4) Motherby, Elizabeth, 25, 204 Motherby, Robert, 83 t Necessity, subjective us. objective, 144. See also A priori Newton, Isaac, 11

258

Index

Nicolai, C. F., 7, 8 NIcolovius, F., 31 Noumea a, 13 Objects, 16, 30, 7t, 103 a., 106,183 On a Discovery according to Which All Critique of Pure Reason Is Supposed to Be Obviated by an Earlier One, 19, 142 n. On the Common Saying, "That May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice," 208 (n.2) On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space, 11 (n.12) Only Possible Proof of the Existence af Gad, 5, 44, 46 Ontology, 125, 182 Opus postumum, 31, 99 n., 252 Pantheismusstreit, 21 ff. Paton, H. J.. 12(0.13) Phenomena, 65; and noumeru, 61 Phenomenology, 59, 66 Philanthropin, 15, 83-85 Platner (or Plattner), Ernst, 78, 126 Plato, 72, 143 Pleasure, 60, 68, 78,127 Plessing, F. V. L., IJ, 23 f., 1 1 3 18 Positing (Setzen), 241 ff. Pre-established harmony, 39, 73, 154

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik), 7, 13, lot Propaedentic discipline: Critique of Pure Reason as a, 60, 144; Critique as not a, 254 Punishment, 199 Pure concepts. See Categories

Reecard, G. C-, 44, 86 Seile (Sell), C. G., 94, 162 £. Receptivity, 183 Sensibility, 27, 29, 59, 97, 183, 297; Rehberg, A. W., 166-69, 212(1^2), a priori, 109. See also Space and time 3( -3) Servants, Kant's attitude toward, Reichardt, J. F., 94, 121 n. 123 Reid, Thomas, 135 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 17, 18, Setzen. See Positing Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley 10, 27 n., 28, 29, 126(11.4), I27 Cooper, 3d Ear! of, :or.., 68 136-50, 176 £., 177 ff., 1S0, Smith, Norman Kemp, I2(n.i3) 211 f., 217, 238, 253 Religion, 6, 14, 15, 20, 21, 26 Snow, C. P., 5 (n.30), 79-82, 107 f., 131 f., 158, Soul, 9, 56 f. Space and dme, 6, n, 52, 61-67, 186 f., 205, 217-20 74-76, 125. 141. 163* 184, 193, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen 195, 196 ff. der blossen Vernunft. See ReliSpinoza, Baruch, 21, 40, izß(n.i), gion within the Limits of Rea15S son Alone P.eiigior. within the Limits of ReaSpiritual substances, 9 £., 55 ff. son Alor.e, 14, 20, 178(0.2), Stäudlin, C. F., 205 £. 205 £., 200 n., 220. Stang, Conrad, 24,224 f. Religious reacdon to Kant's phi- Streit der Faeultäten, Der. See losophy, 17, 19, 20, 21, 1x3-14, Strife of the Faculties i22(n.i), 163(11.4), 186 f., 206, Strife of the Faculties, I2(n.i4), 210 £., 217-20 2:7(n.i), 239(11.7), 249! Representations, 30, 71, 151, 176 £.; Sufficient reason, principle of, 19, content of, 183; objectivity of, 139-42,146 £. 191, 216, 228 Sulzer, J. G., 44, 57, 97 Reuss, Maternus, 24, 222 £. Swedenborg, Emanuel, 4(11.2), xo, Richardson, J., 31 54, 57.160 Swift, Jonathan, 107 Scheiling, F. W. J., 29 Syncretism, 158 Schiller, Friedrich, 8, 31, 209, Synthesis (Zusammensetzung, Verknüpfung), 26, 30, 44, 51, 221 f. 112, 129, 151, 169, r8i, 183, 191, Schlettwein, J. A., 226 n. 195, 214, 216, 232ff.,245-48 Schmid, C. F., 17,18 Synthetic a priori judgments, 13, Schrepfer, J. G., 114 106, 141 ff., 184. See also AnaSchütz, C. G., 17,18, 26 E., 119 f., lytic-synthetic distinction; Math234 ft. ematics Schultz, Johann, 74, 99 a., 108-13, Synthetic unity, 198, 215. See also 128-31, 208, 223, 227, 229-32 Apperception Schulze, G. E. ("Aenesidemus"), 196,215 Teleology, 128, 208, 22X Schwärmerei (fanaticism, enthuTetens, J. N., 96, 103, 107 siasm), 159/5., 221 2I

N

Index

•

259

Thing-in-itself, t6, 26, 27, 29, 30, 103 n., 195,2=3 =43 Tieftrunk, J, H., 26, 30, 238-50. Time, 62-65, 69 t., 75, 148, 198. See also Intuition, pure; Space and rime Todes, Samuel J., 9 n.

Vleesehauwer, Herman J. de, 31

Träume eines Geistersekers, erläutert durch Träume der Metaphysik- See Dreams of a GhostSeer "Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics

Vorländer, Karl, 24, 24 a., 32 (11.42), 163(11.4)

Truth, 144 Turnips, 31, 252

über den Gemeinspruch: "Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis." See On the Common Saying, "That May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice" über die Buchmacherei (1798), 8 über eine Entdeckung, nach der alle neue Kritik der reinen Vernunft durch eine ältere entbehrlich gemacht u/erden soll. See On a Discovery According to Which All Critique of Pure Reason Is Supposed To Be Obviated by an Earlier One

Ulrich, J. A. H„ 18, i26(n.3) Understanding, spontaneity of, 71, 214 t, 228 t., 240-44

Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und Moral. See Inquiry into the Distinctness of the Fundamental Principles of Natural Theology ar.d Mords

Verbinden. See Combine

Verknüpfung. See Synthesis

260

Index

(n.35)

Von dem ersten Grunde des Unterschiedes der Gegenden in Raum. See On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space

Was heisst: Sich im Denken onentiren? See What Is Orientation in Thinking?

Wasianski, E. A. C., 32 Weldon, T. D., 12(0.13)

What Is Orientation in Thinking?,

21, 121 n., 123(0.2), 158 n. Wieiand, C. M., iS(n.i9), 119 (n.z), 120

Will, 192 Windisch-Graetz, Joseph NIcolaus von, X5~(n.i) WöUner, J. C., 103(0.4), 173 Wolff (or Wolf), Christian, 17, 47, 51,62(0.3), 149.132, 179(0.:)

Wolff, Robert Paul, 12 (n.:?), 64 (n-5)

Wolke, C. H., 14 f„ 33-85 Woltersdorf, T. C. G., 173(3.:), 210 Women, Kant's attitude toward, 25 f., 204. See also Kant's letters to Maria von Herbert Wright, Thomas, 46(11.8) Zedlitz, K. A. von, 8, 12, 91, 92, 94 Zöllner, J. F., 163(0.3) Zusammensetzung. See Combina-

ion; Synthesis